


the dragons on the map

by qqueenofhades



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, History Nerd Garcia Flynn, Medieval History, Multi, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Time Team Is Really Out Of Their Element
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-04-24 05:57:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 57,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14349345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qqueenofhades/pseuds/qqueenofhades
Summary: After the Lifeboat is nearly destroyed, the Time Team ends up stranded in their strangest and most unfamiliar destination yet: 1195 France. With Rittenhouse to stop, medieval adventures to be had, and a pair of rival kings at war, it'll truly be a miracle if they ever get home. (Garcy/Lyatt/pre-Garcyatt, Flogan, Rufus Is Judging, general Time Team relationships and bonding. Guest appearances from the Plantagenets, for reasons.)





	1. Chapter 1

Lucy returns to consciousness first, slowly. There’s a slamming pain in her head, bright lights flashing behind her eyes in a way that seems bad, and she is vaguely aware that she is lying on her side, still strapped into her seat. The acrid scent of shot electrical wiring pervades her nose, harsh as smelling salts, and she coughs, trying to get enough air into her flattened lungs to think about normal operation again. The immediately preceding moments are a blur, but she does recall that they were taking a _lot_ of fire on the attempted return jump, Rufus frantically slamming keys as Rittenhouse was unloading a damn grenade launcher behind them. The last thing Lucy remembers him saying, just before everything vanished in a roar, was, _“Oh fuck.”_ Which is not usually a good sign, but especially not when the person saying it is piloting a time machine. They’re somewhere else, they got out, the Lifeboat isn’t completely blown up, but – are they home? Something about it makes her wonder.

Lucy jerks her eyes open, and takes in her surroundings. She’s staring at the inside of the Lifeboat, which has a fist-sized hole punched through the metal hide, admitting a thin spear of indeterminate daylight. Holes are definitely bad. The control panel is steaming, half the lights blinking red, which looks worse. The boys are all still strapped into their seats, Wyatt on the ceiling and Flynn crunched to one side, Rufus face-down on the console, in a way that means they definitely did not land in the correct direction. Oh God, they _are_ just unconscious, aren’t they? Nobody is moving, and there is a trickle of red running down Wyatt’s face. The shell-shocked interior of the Lifeboat is deathly silent, except for Lucy’s wheezes and gulping. Her wind doesn’t feel like it’s planning on coming back.

She panics, fumbles at her seatbelt, and manages to loosen it, scrambling on hands and knees into the blinded eyeball of a definitely-very-broken time machine. It shifts underfoot as she moves, throwing her off balance, and rolls to one side like a gyro, rearranging the boys again and making Lucy tumble backwards into Flynn. He groans, but doesn’t quite come around.

That’s fine. A groan is good. She can work with a groan. Trying not to shift the Lifeboat again, or roll off some convenient cliff that could be right behind them, she puts a hand on his face and taps his cheek. “Flynn?” She taps a little harder. “Garcia?”

He’s definitely alive, so while his presumably just-as-scrambled brain is sorting out what it wants to do with that information, Lucy stands on her tiptoes and anxiously turns Wyatt’s slack head, searching for the source of the blood. There’s a gash on his temple that does not look fun, but she puts two fingers to his neck and finds a faintly bumping pulse. It’s fast and shallow, and they’ll need to patch up that cut soon, but she still has one more member of her team to look after, and wades through the twisted hull to Rufus, pulling him off the console. His nose is bloody and his eyes are closed, but he twitches under Lucy’s hands, jerks, then turns off to the side and retches. She can see a crack under his eyelashes as he slowly turns his head up toward her. “L… Lucy?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me.” Lucy coughs. “Where – _when_ – are we?”

“I have no idea.” Rufus shakily pushes himself upright, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “It was all going nuts right as I launched. They hit something, I couldn’t steer. We were pulling something like six G’s, I blacked out before I could be sure, but I tried to – ”

“You’re fine. You did great. We’re here, we’re not, I don’t know, crushed into space dust or floating as disembodied eyeballs outside the time stream. We’re somewhere, we can work with this.” Lucy tries to make her voice as encouraging as she can, even though she and Rufus can both see that cheery thoughts alone are not getting them out of this. “We have some spare parts, don’t we? To avoid a repeat of the 1754 incident? We can mend this.”

Rufus flicks his gaze around at the chaos. “I’m not sure we can just slap a spare tire on this.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Lucy repeats, as bracingly as she can. “You need to help me with Flynn and Wyatt. I think they took the worst of it.”

Rufus is clearly still distracted over the damage to his baby, but he manages to undo his webbing and help Lucy wrestle Flynn and Wyatt out of theirs. Wyatt falls straight down directly onto Flynn, which he might have enjoyed more in other circumstances, and Rufus grabs him under the arms while Lucy takes his feet. They have to climb halfway up the wall to the door, which Rufus wrestles open while swearing, and more sunlight spills in when he opens it. They hoist Wyatt up over the edge like a side of beef, manage to give him a more or less soft landing on the grass below, then really have to work at it with Flynn. Lucy is a small woman, Rufus is not a American Ninja Warrior contestant, and Flynn is… well, he’s large. They’re both sweating heavily by the time they, along with their barely-conscious compatriots, have recollected outside. The Lifeboat is lying on its side, tipped and skidded in a spinning muddy furrow, in some grassy field. It’s very quiet. Hopefully at least nobody saw them bomb out of the sky like a meteor.

As he kneels next to Wyatt, trying to fashion a bandage out of his cravat (they were in 1799, trying to stop Rittenhouse from interfering at the death of George Washington), Rufus looks around, shielding his eyes. “When do you think we are?”

“I don’t know.” The countryside is broad and green and old-world in a way that makes Lucy think of Europe. Did they just detour sideways rather than forward? At least if they’re somewhat close to the Industrial Revolution, there has to be a steelworks around. Or at least a forge. Maybe France? The Founding Fathers had extensive links with France, after all; Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine might be the counterweight that pulled them. It could be Normandy. Lucy took a trip to visit the D-day beaches as a high school senior. “I think Europe.”

Rufus gives her a look, but carries on trying to revive Wyatt, as Lucy gets a little water from a nearby rivulet and splashes it on Flynn. He snorts, jerks, then his eyes fly open and he tries to leap to his feet all at once, only to stagger and get no further than his knees before falling heavily. Then he swears. “What the _hell_ just – ?”

“Morning to you too,” Lucy says wryly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You need to take it easy, you’ve been out. We – we landed pretty hard.”

Flynn’s eyes flick past her to the slain carcass of the Lifeboat. It’s apparent at once that this is a considerable understatement, and he grimaces, putting a hand to his side. “Feels like I broke a damn rib.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.” Lucy can feel him jonesing to get up again, and pushes hard on his shoulder until he grudgingly abandons the idea. Seeing that he’s once more online and bad-tempered, she goes over to help Rufus with Wyatt, the only one who hasn’t shown any signs of stirring. It’s bad if you’re out for more than five minutes, no matter what the movies say about getting knocked on the head and waking up hours later with only a bump. “Come on,” she says, half under her breath. “Come on, Wyatt, wake up.”

Flynn glances at them, at Rufus with the wet cravat and Lucy trying to make sure his airway is clear. Then he sighs, crawls over on hands and knees as if to make it pointedly clear that he is obeying orders not to stand up, and pushes them both out of the way. Braces his hands on Wyatt’s chest and gives him a few bone-crackingly hard compressions – well, if you’re doing them right, they’re supposed to be violent, but Lucy can’t look. She can hear Wyatt’s limbs flop as Flynn repeats them to no effect, then looks at the sky as if of course it would finish off the day by making him do this. He opens Wyatt’s mouth, and starts CPR.

After a few agonizing moments, Lucy and Rufus reaching out to grab each other’s hands, there’s a faint sputter from Wyatt, a gurgle, and a muffled sound of protest. Flynn lets go and sits back on his heels with a satisfied expression, as Wyatt coughs up a lung, Lucy puts a hand under his head and turns him on his side, and Wyatt finally goes slack, breathing hard. “Okay,” he croaks. “Anyone want to tell me why I woke up kissing Flynn?”

“I did just save your life.” Flynn wipes his mouth. “So we could start with thank you.”

“Thanks.” It’s still a little grudging, but Wyatt can clearly tell that he’s had a close shave, and he doesn’t hate Flynn quite so much as to be completely ungrateful. Lucy gets him some more water, which Wyatt drinks, then glances at the Lifeboat. “I was going to ask if we made it back, but kinda looks like negative on that.”

“Yeah.” Rufus stands up. “I’ll go see if I can get anything running, any kind of readout. Can anyone see if there’s a road or a village or something like that? We’re probably going to have to spend the night. And we should get Wyatt’s head looked at.”

“I agree,” Flynn remarks. Wyatt glares at him.

Lucy gives him a chastening look, and gets to her feet, nodding to him. Since Rufus needs to look at the Lifeboat, and Wyatt is alive but not feeling fresh as a daisy, it’s clearly Lucy and Flynn’s job to run the scouting trip. They are still in their 1799 clothes, which hopefully are not too out of place, chronologically speaking, but with scuff and soot and bloodstains and other evidence of their recent misadventures, they definitely look alarming. The sun is fairly well down the western horizon. It won’t kill them if they have to spend the night in the crashed Lifeboat, but with not knowing anything about where they are, they’d prefer not to.

They’ve walked for about twenty minutes until they finally come on a road, narrow and muddy and deeply grooved with wheel ruts, and Lucy hopes that this is validation of her theory that they just got knocked sideways, rather than forward. She is increasingly sure that this is in fact France, though she can’t say why. Could also be England, with the green downs. Start of the nineteenth century, before the major rise of the factories? The countryside would still be largely rural. Maybe the Napoleonic Wars? Or –

Flynn cocks his head. “Do you hear bells?”

Lucy frowns. Now that he mentions it, she does, and they walk a few dozen more yards, then reach an overlook down into a river valley, framed with steep-sided chalk bluffs. There’s a city built on one side of the bank, but if Lucy was thinking Napoleonic Wars, she’s off by. . . a lot. It’s ringed in a low stone wall with a gate opening onto the bridge, and buildings of stone and straw and timber, woven together in a jumble of narrow lanes and steep streets. There’s a ton of church spires, something that looks like a monastery, and a half-built cathedral enclosed in wooden scaffolding, as well as a round stone tower in the style that Lucy vaguely recalls is called a donjon. What’s most alarming, however, is that she recognizes the city. It’s Rouen, the provincial capital of Normandy, in France (she takes a moment to be proud of guessing Normandy), which she visited during her trip. Wandered around hitting up patisseries and bakeries and enjoying the medieval old town, including the huge and spectacular cathedral. But according to the little info-brochure she picked up, the building was finished in the sixteenth century, notwithstanding various rounds of damage and repair. Cathedrals could often take hundreds of years to complete for obvious reasons, but this one isn’t much more than a large church with half a tower and a few extra flourishes. This is way before the sixteenth century. This is –

Lucy swivels, aghast, to stare at Flynn, who is regarding the city with a calculating expression and looking a lot more calm about this than she feels. “Thirteenth century,” he says, after a long pause. “Maybe? Early. Could be late twelfth. There’s no Gothic work on that cathedral, it’s High Romanesque. The castle’s not a motte and bailey, but it’s too early for anything before the fourteenth. Yes. My final guess is late twelfth, unless you think otherwise?”

Lucy blinks and stares at him, reminding herself that she knew he was pretty good with the history – has at least done research on the various places in the journal – and this is no time to get suckered by a competent display of it, especially given the circumstances. “We’re – wait. We’re in the _twelfth century?_ That’s – that’s far further back than we’ve ever gone. There isn’t going to be anything to fix the Lifeboat here. We didn’t go sideways, we – we got caught in some kind of backwash, we were just thrown about – what, six hundred years off course? This is not good, this is _not_ good. I don’t know this, I work on American history, I took a few European history courses as an undergrad for distribution requirements, but – ”

Flynn has been standing there with his arms folded and an expectant look on his face, obnoxiously not freaking out nearly as much as Lucy feels this situation deserves. She glares at him. “You seem weirdly happy about this.”

Flynn shrugs. “I’ve wanted to visit the medieval era for a while.”

“Visiting would be one thing, but if we’re stranded – ”

“Rufus will figure something out.” Flynn waves a hand. He’s still staring at the city with a kid-in-the-candy-store expression. It’s the first time Lucy has ever seen him in the past without the immediate job of shooting Rittenhouse agents and causing mayhem to preoccupy him, in one of the historical eras he apparently loves, and it's… well, oddly adorable, if you can forget that they’re screwed. “Besides, I know all about medieval Europe. I read books and books on it as a kid. I pretended to be a knight as much as a cowboy.”

Lucy glances at him. She supposes that yes, as the resident European, Flynn probably is more conversant with this than the rest of their American “anything over two hundred and fifty years is _Old”_ asses. And he did just expertly history the shit out of the architecture, he definitely knows more than that, but she still isn’t convinced that, fulfillment of Flynn’s childhood dreams aside, this is in any way a good thing. They’ve only traveled within American history, or at least places mostly connected to it – since Rittenhouse is, obviously, American in the worst sense of the word. That means they’ve had the luxury of visiting modern or mostly-modern places, speaking English, knowing the drill, and more or less able to blend in, albeit with a few hiccups. None of that applies here. They’re in France, but Lucy’s French is likely to be completely unintelligible to them. Are medieval people going to be very happy about these odd, conspicuous strangers rolling on up? They have a lot of experience at improvising, but _nobody_ is going to buy them as authentic late-twelfth-century (time) travelers just passing through. Even if Rittenhouse isn’t here, there are other dangers. Everyone knows the litany of “plague, war, and death.” Is it just going to be some grim charnel house? Lucy doesn’t think so (can hear Dr. Renshaw, her colleague in the history department, going off on another long rant about this) but still. They have no frame of reference, no sure way of getting home, and no idea what to do next.

“They’ll close the gates at nightfall, won’t they?” she says, after a long pause spent reminding herself that they’ve gotten out of worse scrapes. “If we’re planning to stay the night in the city, we need to hurry back and get Wyatt and Rufus.”

Flynn glances at them in their turn-of-the-nineteenth-century getups. To say the least, they are about half a millennium ahead of the fashion curve, and Wyatt is hurt, which will be still more noticeable. Then he nods down at the Seine. “Someone might be doing their washing by the river. We should go steal some clothes first.”

Lucy supposes this is sensible, even as she thinks they only have a limited amount of time and maybe wardrobe alterations should wait. But there is something to be said for trying to reduce the amount of sticking-out they’re already going to be doing, and they climb carefully down the steep, wooded bluffs, skidding and slipping until they find a trail. The sun is well behind them by the time they make it to the bottom and Lucy’s pretty sure they can’t find clothes, hike back for the boys, _and_ make it to the city again by sunset. She hugs herself, shivering, as they forage along the bank, looking at Rouen on the opposite side. It fits like a familiar but badly altered negative into the memory in her mind, a smaller, tighter, messier, smellier version of itself – it’s not _stink,_ exactly, but it definitely smells more pungent, earthy and dense, a city without modern sanitation or sewage facilities, without running water or daily baths or chemical treatment. Wyatt and Rufus, who love their modern comforts and technology, are not going to be thrilled. Lucy doesn’t expect it to be the Hilton, but she tells herself it can’t be that bad, that different. People are people everywhere. They can do this.

It takes them a while, but they finally find some clothes spread on the bank, anchored down with rocks to dry, and a woman just returning to collect them with a basket under her arm. She sees these two outlandish individuals in their strange garb and stares. Then, given as Flynn is just gathering up the whole lot, she points at him and angrily informs him (Lucy can’t understand her words, but it doesn’t need translation) that _hey,_ those are hers, time for him to drop them sharpish. Lucy thinks she catches a word close to “reeve,” which means law enforcement, which is Not Good. Penalties for thieves are often harsh, especially in town. It keeps crime down, but it’s really inconvenient when you’re stranded time travelers trying to lift some new digs. She looks at Flynn – first test, he’s up. What is he going to do?

Flynn, to everyone (well, Lucy’s) astonishment, does not solve the problem just by hitting the woman on the head and running away. He says something about “vuel de le roy,” which Lucy also doesn’t understand. He then repeats it several times, since she’s not sure he speaks Old French either. Whatever it is, however, it makes the woman change her tune. She is clearly unhappy, but finally backs away. With a resentful look at them over her shoulder, she says, _“Deu pais, m’seignor,”_ and hurries out of sight.

“What did you – ?” Lucy blinks. “What did you tell her?”

“I said I was taking the clothes by the wish of the king,” Flynn says. “Or at least the last part. Technically, agents of prise sent by the king in times of war can take anything they deem necessary – food, fodder, livestock, supplies – for the effort. I’m lucky she didn’t ask to see a seal or a warrant, but most people wouldn’t. So now her family doesn’t have clothes anymore, but she’s not in trouble with the authorities.” He shrugs. “We’ll make it up later.”

Lucy knows this probably won’t happen, and she shoots a brief, troubled look over her shoulder, but the woman is gone. “How did you know the king would be at war, though?”

“Twelfth-century France?” Flynn smiles grimly. “They’re _always_ at war.”

With that, they slog back up the steep bluffs and start on the trek back to break the news to Wyatt and Rufus. It’s clear they aren’t making it into Rouen tonight, which might be for the best – shifty strangers dressed in stolen clothes, turning up at nightfall, would definitely catch someone’s attention. Maybe they can just shuffle in with the morning business tomorrow and look as ordinary as possible. Or maybe, magically, Rufus has fixed the Lifeboat while they were gone, and this is all a moot point.

Rufus has, in fact, not fixed the Lifeboat, and he is sitting outside, next to Wyatt, by the time they finally get back. On their approach, however, he jumps to his feet. “What the hell? What took so long? I thought you were going to scout!”

“We did scout,” Lucy says heavily. “It’s bad.”

With that, she explains the conundrum that they have found themselves stuck in, as Wyatt and Rufus exchange grim looks. “So,” Rufus says, rubbing his hands over his face. “Is this like a _Robin Hood: Men in Tights_ situation, or like a Black Death situation?”

Flynn makes an impatient noise. “The plague doesn’t reach Europe for another hundred and fifty years, Rufus. Christ.”

“Yes, wow, that’s _really_ comforting, Flynn, thank you. I’m so glad to know I can definitely cross plague off the list of all the ways we’re likely to die out here. I thought wiping my butt with leaves in 1754 was bad, well – this. This is _much_ worse.”

“But you know about it, right?” Wyatt pushes himself upright and looks at Lucy. “I know you do American history, but you have to know some of this, don’t you?”

“A… a little.” Lucy twists her dirty hem between her fingers. “Just major dates and events, though. The crusades, the Black Death, the Hundred Years’ War, a little about knights and chivalry, that kind of thing. But really not that much. Flynn had to do most of it back there. He knows a lot more than me.”

“So we’re stuck in the Dark Ages with a broken Lifeboat, and we have to rely on Flynn to history us out of it?” Wyatt blows out a frustrated breath. “This day just keeps getting better.”

“The Dark Ages is a bullshit term,” Flynn says mildly. “And if you don’t want to get home, you’re welcome to keep on ignoring me.”

Wyatt opens his mouth, then shuts it with a visible grimace. “Okay,” he says, with a clear effort at politeness. “Did you figure out the actual year yet?”

“I figured out the century,” Flynn says. “Isn’t that enough?”

“All right, all right.” Lucy can sense that much like kindergartners without snacktime, the boys (especially when also not fed, facing an uncertain future, still aching from the crash, and not sure when or if they’re getting out of here) are liable to turn into sharks smelling blood in the water if allowed to continue unimpeded. “That’s enough. We’ll go into Rouen tomorrow and see if – ”

“See if what?” Rufus interrupts. “If anyone has some spare time machine parts lying around? I looked through everything that survived the crash, and I don’t have enough to patch the damn hole in the hull, much less the main computer. What are they gonna give us, a sundial? I’m sure that’ll be really useful. We could not have possibly landed in a worse spot, technology-wise. And if Rittenhouse has free rein to do whatever they want since we can’t get out of here and stop them….we might as well just go down to ye olde embassy and apply for permanent residency. Not like there’d be much of a future worth going back to.”

The team exchanges worried looks. They can’t say that Rufus is wrong, because he’s not. Finally Wyatt says, “I don’t agree we just have to settle down in some hut and learn how to farm, or whatever. There’s gotta be a way out.”

“They do more things than farm, you know.” Flynn’s resolve to hold his tongue has clearly run short. “Don’t any of you know _anything_ about medieval history?”

“Not really a hot topic in American public schools, you know,” Rufus snaps. “So – ”

“You went to MIT, Rufus. Lucy went to Stanford. She knows something, you should. We’ll make an exception for the Texas high-school dropout.”

A muscle goes in Wyatt’s cheek. He looks about to decide that the hut might be okay if he gets to bash Flynn to death with a shovel first, but Lucy glares at both of them again, and they once more shut their mouths. “Not helping,” she says coldly. “Not helping, Flynn. We’ve established that we’re going to need to lean on you as the historian in this, but also that we don’t know. You can’t just sneer at us, all right? You’re going to have to teach us.”

Flynn sighs, looking both annoyed and ashamed. At last he says, “Fine. This place is dangerous and complicated, and it won’t be like anything you’re used to. But if you’re thinking it’s full of some weird rustic shit-smeared cavemen who are backward religious zealots and just want to burn you at the stake, you’re wrong. You’ve been in the past long enough, you’ve met enough people, you know that they’re the same, even across place and time. You also know it’s usually not what you think. If we’re going to pull this off, you have to think of this as somewhere just a little bit more afield than usual. Not some nightmare dystopia of endless filth and disease and war. All right?”

A pause, and then Wyatt, Lucy, and Rufus nod, some of them more reluctantly than others. Wyatt says, “But we have guns, right? At least until we run out of ammo. If some Rittenhouse goons did follow us here, or if we hit trouble, we’ve got the advantage.”

Flynn grins, without much humor. “We run into some mounted knights, you’re going to be rethinking that in a hurry. And we have, as you say, low ammo and will draw a lot of attention if we ever had to use them. We’ll have to find swords, but peasants – ” he glares at their stolen clothes – “aren’t going to be wearing swords.”

“One problem at a time,” Lucy says. “How about the clothes, then?”

They sort through them, and discover a shift, dress, and surcote (a kind of close-fitted, half-sleeved jacket) for Lucy, though they’re a little too big and have to be knotted in. They’re woven of some hand-spun wool and flax, heavier than she’s used to with light machine-made fabrics, but your clothes lasting around here is important. There’s a long belt that she uses as a girdle, and she looks at Flynn. “Would I be covering my hair?”

“If you were married,” Flynn says. “And a woman your age likely would be, so…”

Lucy can sense half a look exchanged between Wyatt and Flynn, silently disagreeing over who gets to volunteer as her husband. She pretends not to notice and takes out a linen cloth stuffed in the sleeve of the shift, awkwardly tying it over her head. Nobody’s going to notice her shoes or her underwear, so she plans on keeping those. Straightforward enough.

Dressing the boys proves more difficult. There are two tunics, one green and one brown, that fit Wyatt and Rufus well enough, but the third one is clearly a child’s and is not going to get over Flynn’s head, much less the rest of him. There are likewise three pairs of tied-on pseudo-breeches-trousers that Flynn says are called braies, and hose called chausses, which are knotted up with leather cords to keep your shoes on (they don’t have the shoes, so Wyatt and Rufus likewise keep theirs). Working men would wear some kind of cap or hood, but they also don’t have those (couldn’t the poor woman doing her laundry have conveniently brought _all_ her family’s clothes? Never mind). They also don’t have cloaks, though they can possibly acquire those somewhere else. It’s not winter, so they shouldn’t freeze, but it also isn’t balmy. Lucy struggles to remember a hazy memory of medieval clothing laws that dictated who could wear what. Have those started yet?

The end result is that Wyatt, Lucy, and Rufus have gotten dressed more or less like working people of fairly humble status, but Flynn is still stuck in his 1799 jacket, cravat, waistcoat, and breeches, since none of this stuff is going to fit him, not even if they traded. With that and his height, he is completely and jarringly out of place, and everyone stares at him, trying to think of an explanation. Finally Rufus volunteers, “You’re from… I don’t know. Foreign? Also, what’s the black people situation around here? There’s a lot of people who are all, wooo medieval Europe was super white, so…? Yes? No?”

“They’re idiots,” Flynn says. “I think we’ll have to be from Spain. At least two of us speak Spanish, and besides, it’s had Muslims and Jews living in it for four hundred years, it’s very diverse. Multiple arrivals of the Moors from Northern Africa and regional kingdoms. The Reconquista has been running for a hundred years, but it’s not complete yet, it won’t be until 1492. Rufus would be a free man of respectable status there.”

Rufus blinks. “Wow. Who would have thought it would take going back to the medieval era for me not to have to play a second-class citizen or a slave?”

“As I said.” Flynn shrugs. “I’m a traveling merchant from Spain, hopefully that explains the eccentricities. Lucy is my wife, Rufus is my business partner, and Wyatt is my servant.”

Wyatt splutters. “Excuse me, why do I have to be your – ”

“Dude,” Rufus says. “I’ve played that role on literally most of our missions to date. Just… suck it up and take it for the team, all right? Please? Maybe we can steal some nicer clothes and it’ll be a moot point, but yeah. You never have to. So just once?”

Wyatt opens his mouth, stops, then nods, looking at Rufus. “Okay, buddy,” he says. “Only for you, though. I’m your servant, or Lucy’s. Not Flynn’s.”

“Fine.” Flynn looks as if since he came out of this with Lucy as his wife, he’s willing to let the chance to order Wyatt around slide (he’ll probably do it anyway). “We should find somewhere to hide the Lifeboat.”

“Like we can pick it up and move it anywhere?” Rufus raises an eyebrow. “Maybe we can dig up some pieces of turf and try to camouflage it, but otherwise, it’s staying here.”

This is an obvious logistical problem, and they try to puzzle out a workaround. It’s entirely possible that anyone who finds the damn thing will be too alarmed to go anywhere near it, but it’s a useful source of metal. They could just shrug and strip off parts, which is obviously to be avoided. Finally, the team starts cutting peat with the very rudimentary tools they have, which is hard, dirty, and exhausting work. It barely covers the Lifeboat but at least makes it stick out less, they have no food, and everyone is in a bad mood when they’re done. “Great,” Wyatt says, wiping his hands on his tunic. “Glad we’re getting our first taste of authentic peasant life. There isn’t even some orchard or anything nearby where we could steal fruit?”

“Any orchard would be covered by someone’s forest laws,” Flynn warns him. “You can’t hunt in the woods without permission, you can’t take as much as a squirrel. They’re reserved for the noblemen.”

“Oh?” Wyatt says moodily. “Only if you got caught. These guys don’t have infrared, electric fences, whatever – how are they gonna know if we sneak in? You and I could probably handle some punk, if anyone was even awake to check.”

“I had to resuscitate you from a non-responsive state earlier,” Flynn counters. “Now you think you’re ready to start throwing punches? I’m not getting us all caught and thrown into some dungeon just because you can’t go one night without – ”

Lucy herself thinks some dungeon time sounds like a great plan for them, maybe chained to the same wall so they can’t get away, but she also isn’t going to spend this entire trip babysitting them. She just clears her throat, and they break off at once, which is a somewhat enjoyable response. They harrumph, shuffle their feet, and make themselves useful finding a semi-soft spot for everyone to lie down. Without cloaks, it’s a little too cold, and they don’t have an obvious way of starting a fire. They remain there stubbornly for a while as it gets colder and later, until Lucy lets out a little huff of exasperation, snuggles up against Wyatt’s back, and beckons Flynn with her chin to move up against hers. Since Rufus is not spooning Flynn even if his life literally depends on it, he rolls up by Wyatt, and with this impromptu arrangement in place, they are able to share a little warmth. Never speak of it again, no doubt, which is a shame. They’re going to need to lean on each other like never before.

The ground is hard and Lucy still isn’t very comfortable, but at least squashed between Wyatt and Flynn, she is safe and mostly warm, and she manages to drop under. When she opens her eyes, the downs are awash in thin grey morning light, and everyone is stirring and squinting and grimacing, as all their bumps and bruises from the crash have had ample time to stiffen up overnight. There is a lot of swearing and wincing as they get to their feet and brush themselves off, then find themselves oddly struggling to walk away from the Lifeboat. They don’t know if they’re coming back here, if they can find anything to fix it, and this is the last slender connection to their lives and homes and everything else. Rufus sucks in an unsteady breath and reaches out to pat it like an old dog about to be led into the vet to be put to sleep. “So long, buddy,” he says. “We’ll – we’ll see you later, okay?”

Everyone (except perhaps Flynn) finds themselves a little choked up as well, and nod solemnly, mourners at the funeral. Then they take one more breath, turn their backs, and start to walk.

It’s turning into a nice morning as they trek toward Rouen, wispy clouds here and there but the sky otherwise a pale blue, and Lucy wonders what time of the year it is. It feels like spring, rather than fall, since it’s not winter and it’s not warm enough to be summer. Well, maybe they can get to the city and find some answers. If any of them can make themselves understood.

They reach the path down the bluffs, Wyatt and Rufus get their first load of the city, and there is a definite gulp-hard, gut-check moment as they start down. By day, with the gate open, the bells of the countless churches ringing out for various services (they have no clocks, they’re going to have to learn to tell time by the canonical hours), gulls wheeling in updrafts off the Seine, ox-carts clattering across the bridge, and the usual raucous daily commerce in the streets, the city is alive and noisy in a way that it wasn’t last night, when it seemed haunted and dreamy and remote. They join the queue of people waiting to enter the city, whereupon they are asked (so far as Lucy can tell) for a toll, since they’re not citizens. They don’t have any twelfth-century money, so this is a problem. Finally, Flynn takes the silver buckles off his colonial shoes, watched by the confused porter, and manages to trade them as collateral for their entrance. With that, they are now in the lion’s mouth.

Lucy glances around, eager to immerse herself in a new time period that she knows less about, feeling a bit of that same awe and delight that she did in arriving in 1937 New Jersey for the first time. She has to pay attention where she’s going and not gawk, but she keeps turning her head to look anyway. It’s admittedly a bit tidier than she expected, though she shouldn’t be surprised. Flynn has explained that medieval people associate filth and bad smells (not entirely wrongly) with disease; even without an understanding of modern germ theory, they’re no more keen to muck around in their own shit than any other sane person. Stoops are swept, walls whitewashed, and though it definitely smells stronger than a modern city center, it isn’t entirely unpleasant. The scent of cooking food drifts from shop stalls and tavern doors, underlaid with a rich, earthy human reek, as well as whiffs of the perfumes and spices that people use to smell sweet in the absence of daily showers. But as almost everyone washes faces, hands, feet, and other extremities on a regular basis, what she can actually see of them is relatively clean. A crowd of urchins comes speeding up, clearly offering some sort of amazing bargain, and Flynn shoos them cursorily away. “Look out for those,” he informs the others. “Pick you clean if they think they can get away with it.”

“I thought thieves got their hands chopped off.” Rufus glances around the city square, eyes drawn by a swinging sign with a loaf painted on. “And that’s not just a theoretical question, because if we can’t figure out how to get some money, I’m just gonna Valjean it and steal some bread. Even if Medieval Javert immediately comes after us.”

Everyone agrees that while they don’t want the latter, the former is a matter of urgency, and finally by some very careful sleight of hand and old hustler tricks (Wyatt bumps into a well-off-looking-dude and distracts him, Flynn relieves him expertly of his purse) they get their hands on some things that are apparently coins. They’re silver and roughly circular, but have been struck on a forge individually rather than mass-produced by machinery in a mint, leading to a certain variation in their size and shape. Edges are clipped off, meaning that some are worth less than others; you literally make change with bits of the physical coin. They’re too tarnished and worn smooth for Flynn to tell whose image is on them. He can make out _D.G.R,_ which he informs them stands for _Dei Gratia Rex;_ or, by the grace of God, King, part of the monogram on the monarch’s coinage. If it’s when he thinks it is, Normandy is still under English control and ruled by the English king, who is also the duke of Normandy. It’s one of the Plantagenets, probably, but he can’t be sure.

They manage to buy breakfast without being rumbled for thieves, though they think it’s better to be out of the marketplace before the rich man realizes that his belt is much lighter. The food is hot, flaky, and spicy, some kind of sausage and mince baked in pastry, and they’re hungry enough to scarf it down without complaint. Finally Rufus, still licking his fingers, says, “So, the date?”

Flynn glances around at the chattering citizens passing on their morning errands. They (especially Flynn) have gotten some odd looks, but nobody has outright apprehended them. However, they have not been able to understand a word of the surrounding conversations; the breakfast transaction was conducted mostly in sign language, since that’s easy enough. Here and there Lucy can catch something that sounds familiar to her from modern French, but the times she and Flynn have tried to speak it, they get blank stares. If they are going to ask anyone for substantive information, they need a lingua franca. Latin? Lucy reads bits and pieces of it, but speaking is out. This is going to be harder than she thought.

At last, they overhear a scrap of Spanish, or something that is recognizably close enough to it, and Flynn and Wyatt, the Spanish-speaking members of the gang, chase up the speaker. They better hope it’s Castilian that he speaks, the forerunner of modern Spanish, as Leonese, Catalan, Aragonese, Basque, Galician, Occitan, and the other languages of the scattered Spanish kingdoms aren’t likely to be very helpful. Finally, however, they get some rudimentary communication established. The Spanish merchant is clearly very confused why these yahoos are demanding to know what year it is, but answers. Flynn asks him for clarification in a few points, resulting in more squinting. But at last, he gives him a coin for his trouble, and the merchant hurries away, clearly reminding himself not to do business with these guys if they reappear in future. Still.

“Well?” Rufus asks. “What did he say?”

“He said it was 1233? I think?” Wyatt frowns, glancing at Flynn. “Does that sound right to you?”

“That’s what he said, but it’s not right.” Flynn scowls, as if he can’t believe the random citizen they accosted on the street for information is a total idiot. “If it was 1233, this would be French territory again, solidly reclaimed by the French crown after the conquest of 1204. And that – ” he points at the banner over the castle that they can now see, two golden lions on a field of red – “is proof that it’s still English.”

“What about the rest of what he said?” Wyatt asks. “Monday after Octave Day? At least I think that was what it was?”

“It means the Monday after the Sunday after Easter,” Flynn translates. “We’re lucky we didn’t end up in the middle of Lent, that would have been grim. So. . . April sometime. Early, most likely. You’re going to have to learn how to tell time in reference to various saint and feast days and differing – ” He stops. “Oh, yes.”

“What?”

“It’s not 1233,” Flynn says. “It’s 1195. He was Castilian, he was giving us the Spanish Era date. It’s thirty-eight years ahead of the Julian calendar, it’s used until the end of the fourteenth century. You don’t have a regularized standard of time for Europe until the Gregorian calendar in 1582. Even the miles can be different lengths.”

“Wow.” Rufus shakes his head. “I work with advanced theoretical physics for a living, and _I_ think that’s confusing.”

“You’ll get used to it.” Flynn is clearly doing some calculations in his head. “Yes. 1195. Normandy is still English, at least for another nine years. Richard the Lionheart is king, he got back from being held prisoner on his return from crusade just a year ago, and is – ”

“Richard the Lionheart?” Wyatt brightens with the kind of nerd-glow moment he had around Wendell Scott. “Oh yeah, that’s my boy. What?” he adds, at Lucy’s surprised look. “I told you, I know my military history.”

Flynn raises an eyebrow as if it’s still news to him that Wyatt knows anything. Choosing charitably (for him) not to comment on it, he goes on, “Anyway. Richard and Philip II of France are at war for most of the rest of Richard’s reign, until he dies in 1199. John becomes king, fucks things up, and loses most of France.”

“And there’s just. . . no reason we’d end up here?” Rufus asks. “I mean, I know the Lifeboat was malfunctioning, I was just trying to launch before we blow up, but there was a last-second blip before I lost control. I can’t be sure, and of course the systems are dead so I can’t boot it up and check, but there’s a _chance_ that Rittenhouse could be here too. What could they possibly want with 1195 France? How could that remotely be useful to them in the future? Really wanted more Renaissance Faires in their evil dystopia?”

“Wait, what?” Wyatt looks startled. “If Rittenhouse is here, that means we could find the Mothership. We don’t have to repair the Lifeboat if we can get the Mothership – and we can get it away from them, we can end all this, we – ”

“Yeah.” Lucy beckons for him to keep his voice down, even though no one can understand him. (Unless there’s some Rittenhouse agent in the crowd – but that is probably too paranoid. Hopefully too paranoid, at least.) “But – why _would_ they come here? Some insanely risky gambit trying to strand us, hope the Lifeboat would blow – it’s never gone this far afield before, maybe they thought it was too far of a jump, but – ”

She stops. Then she and Flynn look at each other and say in unison, “Magna Carta.”

“Magma?” Wyatt says. “What, lava?”

“No, Magna. Magna Carta. What Flynn said earlier about King John fucking things up, that’s what made me think of it. John’s the villain in all the Robin Hood stories, Bad King John, all that. Anyway, in 1215, he agrees to the Magna Carta, the Great Charter, forced on him by his exasperated barons. It’s the foundation for representative government and parliamentary democracy, it’s the forerunner of the English common law and then later the entire American system. It’s not necessarily the triumph of the republic, but you can’t overstate its importance in curbing the power of the king and setting up a more egalitarian rule of law.”

The boys exchange looks. “So,” Rufus says. “If Rittenhouse stops the Magna Carta, they make it so that America is invented according to an entirely new system. Which, wild guess, is a lot more creepy and smells like cult teen spirit.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Lucy’s insides clench. “They would change America, they would change Europe, they would change all of Western democratic law – everything about the legal institutions and foundation of our government. Like you said, maybe the power of the king never gets checked, or only after a long war, or centuries later. Maybe England has an absolute monarchy like the French one. Rittenhouse could do almost anything they wanted, in that scenario. This – this is bad. This is _very_ bad.”

“I agree,” Wyatt says, putting a hand on her arm, a small comforting gesture. “I’m sure you’re right about what they want with that. But if that’s the case – that happens in 1215, we’re twenty years too early if they just want to bomb in and object like a wedding crasher. Why 1195?”

Lucy glances at Flynn. He frowns. Then he says, “John is Richard’s younger brother. Richard and his wife never have any children, so there’s no son to inherit the throne after he dies; it passes to his brother instead. In 1195, he was reconciled with his wife after a long estrangement – right around now, in April, actually. But as I said, they don’t have children. If Rittenhouse suggests to him that he remarries, or they’ve brought some sort of, I don’t know, damn mobile fertility clinic, or anything to get him to have a legitimate son, then John never becomes king. Well, he still could. He was rumored to have murdered his own nephew to be sure he succeeded, he could do that with this one. But he might find his job a lot harder if Rittenhouse was protecting them. Anyway – ”

“So – what?” Rufus says. “We have to make sure they don’t remarry Richard off to, like, Emma? So they can bang and have Rittenhouse Joffrey, who will then proceed to become king instead? Wow, that is a mental image I did _not_ need.”

“I don’t know. They could.” Flynn swivels to stare at the banners over the castle. “Rouen. April 1195. Richard’s supposed to be here right now. But if he’s not, that could mean the reconciliation isn’t happening. Rittenhouse could be days or weeks ahead of us, they could have persuaded him to look for a new wife rather than make up with his old one. If he isn’t here, then – ”

“Then,” Lucy completes, with a slightly sick feeling in her stomach. “History’s changed, and we might already be too late.”


	2. Chapter 2

Walking up to the castle and asking to see the king goes as exactly as well in 1195 as it would if you tried the same thing with the White House and the president in 2018 (though you never know, has anyone done that?) Flynn and Lucy bungle along in their bad approximation of Old French for about, oh, thirty seconds before the guards very logically conclude that they are crazy people, and order them to clear out in a tone that likewise does not need much translation. Repeating “le roy, le roy!” also doesn’t do a whole lot to convince the twelfth-century Secret Service of your bona fides, and one of them yells the clear equivalent of “and don’t let us see you around here again” as Flynn and Lucy scurry down the castle bridge in hasty retreat. They reach the end and step down to where Wyatt and Rufus are waiting for them, but everyone can see at a glance how it went. “Well,” Rufus says. “I’m sure the jails around here are _great.”_

“We need to fix this language problem.” Flynn glares around, as if Babelfish or Google Translate (or even a god damn good old-fashioned dictionary) will magically materialize from the ether. “We’re dead in the water otherwise. Nobody can understand us and everyone thinks we’re lunatics. Surely Connor Mason designed the time machines under the assumption that we might travel out of damn _America_ once in a while? Didn’t build a translation app into the control panel or anything like that?”

“We messed around with that,” Rufus says. “But since the Lifeboat is dead, and frankly I am _not_ hiking all the way back there before lunch, it’s not exactly useful. Besides, I think it was only ever installed in the Mothership. The Lifeboat was the beta.”

From Flynn’s expression, it is only with difficulty that he is restraining himself from more impolitic comments on their fallen steed. “I didn’t notice anything like that when I had it,” he says. “But fine. Never mind. We need to find out some other way to tell if Richard’s here, but my hunch is that he isn’t. Kings’ arrivals and processions are a huge production, takes up most of a town’s resources. Besides, the almoner would give away extra food or other charity after morning Mass, there would be beggars waiting there, and we were the only ones. It’s too quiet for the king to be here. Things have definitely changed.”

Wyatt, Lucy, and Rufus exchange a look. Finally Rufus says, “Doesn’t he have, like, a court? A main castle? And besides, he’s the king of England. Why isn’t he there?”

“The kings of England are French, nationally and linguistically speaking, between 1066 and 1399.” Flynn answers distractedly, glancing back up at the castle. “After the Norman Conquest, until Henry IV seizes the throne – he’s the first king to speak English as his mother tongue in over three hundred years. Their wealthiest lands are here, and Philip of France has been at war with Richard over them for several years. The king doesn’t usually stay more than a few weeks in the same place, he travels between any number of castles and cities.”

“So like if Trump just decided to live in, what, Detroit for a couple months?” Rufus asks. “Yeah, as if that would ever happen. Besides, even Detroit doesn’t deserve that.”

Wyatt raises an eyebrow. “Pretty savage there, buddy.”

“Look, I’m from Chicago,” Rufus says. “I get to shade Detroit and St. Louis, it’s my job. And the Packers, but never mind.”

“Saint Louis is actually the grandson of the current French king.” Flynn looks annoyingly pleased with himself, at least for a moment, before remembering to get back to business. “If Richard isn’t here, there’s a fairly large chunk of the country he could be instead – Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Poitou, Aquitaine, and Gascony are all Plantagenet territories. Unless Rittenhouse _did_ persuade him to go back to England, but… I can’t see them managing to trick him. They’ll have offered him something, or someone.”

“Okay,” Wyatt says, a little edgily. “But so where are we going?”

“I’m trying to figure that out, Logan, so shut your damn mouth a second, eh? Or – ”

“Guys,” Lucy interrupts. For once, not to dissuade them from round three hundred and seventy eight of the pissing contest (though that’s a side benefit), but to point at someone in a hooded cloak watching them from the far side over the market. “Over there. Look.”

Wyatt and Flynn break off from their argument and frown in the indicated direction. They exchange half a glance and crack their knuckles, as if weighing up whether brute-squad measures are called for, but the figure has already receded smoothly into the crowd. It could be (and is entirely likely to be) just another local denizen staring at these weird, functionally illiterate, poorly dressed strangers (they _really_ need to get Flynn some proper clothes, he might as well be a giant neon sign of Not From Around Here), but it could also be a Rittenhouse agent left behind to report on whether they turned up in Rouen. In which case, obviously, they should definitely not let him do that.

As casually as possible, the team drifts across the square in the direction taken by the hooded figure, under the imposing stone brows of Saint-Ouen monastery (even without its later additions, it’s impressive – you walk into a medieval cathedral today and you’re still awed, so it gives you at least a little sense of how jaw-dropping it must have been for someone whose entire world was little stone churches, narrow timber houses, or low crofter’s cottages). It’s sounding the bells, which must be for Terce. Flynn has informed them that the canonical hours are Matins (three am), Lauds (six am), Terce (nine am), Sext (noon), None (three pm), Vespers (five pm), and Compline (eight pm or later, depending on when it gets dark). There are no minutes, analog clocks, or other such instruments; your world is regulated by the sound of church bells, and most daily time-keeping referents will involve these hours. Out in the country, most people will wake and sleep with the sun, and work between, but they also get plenty of time off for religious and community holidays, feast days, and other events. Your average modern capitalist slave in a rat-race cubicle works much longer hours (and frankly, for about as much money) than your average medieval peasant.

As they reach the far side, Wyatt and Flynn put their hands on their guns, which they are obviously hoping to avoid, then give Lucy and Rufus a sharp look, instructing them to wait right there, as they vanish down a side alley so narrow that they can’t walk abreast. Lucy and Rufus do so, both doubtless struck by the way that Wyatt and Flynn will bicker absolutely endlessly the rest of the time, but give them a threat to go after in unison and it’s all business. Almost makes you wish for a few more of them. Almost.

There is an indistinct sound of banging, rattling, and muffled shouting from the end of the lane, then the unmistakable dull thump of fist meeting flesh. Lucy cranes around the corner, almost tempted to run down, but knowing that would be a very bad idea for any number of reasons. She remains shifting tensely from foot to foot, until Wyatt and Flynn finally emerge – breathless, with bloodied knuckles (on Flynn’s part) and a small scrap of paper. She looks between them. “Well? What happened?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt says grimly. “He was Rittenhouse. They’re here, and they figured we might follow them. Flynn whaled on him a few times, but he didn’t want to talk. Bit some kind of cyanide capsule and died right in front of us. They’re not fucking around with this one.”

A chill goes down Lucy’s back. Perhaps it was inevitable that Rittenhouse, having targeted almost bafflingly small and inconsequential events until now, was overdue for a grand gesture, saving their strength for a well-choreographed, full-house-assault on a place that would both change everything and that would be very difficult for the team to stop. As Flynn noted, they’re already way over their heads, well out of Lucy’s area of expertise, have an insurmountable (at least for the time being) language barrier, and are guaranteed to get everyone to notice them. If their agents are under orders to die rather than cooperate under any circumstances, this is bad.

“The paper,” Lucy says, nodding at it. “Is that something you found on him?”

“Yeah, we searched him once he was dead.” Wyatt wrinkles his nose. “Obviously we were careful not to get any of the cyanide on us,” he adds, at Lucy’s anxious expression. “He had a little money, we took that too, but it’s not going to get us very far.”

“Here, give me that.” Lucy takes the paper – well, parchment, thick and fibery – a little gingerly, given that it’s just been taken off a poisoned suicide stormtrooper, and flips it open. Her heart skips a beat, and she looks up at Flynn. _“Chastel de Louvre?”_

“What?” Flynn whisks it out of her hand, glances it over, and scowls. _“Chastel de Louvre,”_ he repeats. “That has to be Louvre Castle, the oldest part of the modern Louvre. King Philip started building it as a military fortress before he left on the Third Crusade, in 1190. It’s been under construction for a few years now. If Rittenhouse hides something in its foundations, or influences its development somehow – we know how many people visit the Louvre every year. That could be another part of their plan here. It might not just be about Richard.”

“What, Rittenhouse got tired of all the people with selfie sticks at the Mona Lisa?” Rufus asks. Everyone glances at him askance, and he shrugs. “Sorry. It just seems like they’d be the kind of evil organization that acts like the bad guys in _The Da Vinci Code.”_

“Probably,” Lucy says wryly. “But Richard wouldn’t be in Paris, would he, Flynn? That’s his archrival’s capital city. He can’t go there.”

“No,” Flynn says, “and he wouldn’t. So either we’ve guessed wrong that Rittenhouse wants Richard – which I don’t think we have – or they do in fact have two different plans. Shit.”

“You know,” Rufus sighs. “I liked them better when they really weren’t very good at this.”

Flynn snorts humorlessly, as if to say that didn’t they all.  He considers a moment more, then thrusts the parchment into his jacket. “We can’t split up,” he says, half-sounding as if he wishes they could. “However much we’re scuffling now, it would be twice as bad with two of us off by ourselves. No guarantee of ever finding each other again, either. We should go to Paris and see if this clue is worth anything, and besides, the French royal spies probably know where Richard is. Have to keep an eye on him for military movements and such.”

“That’s true,” Wyatt says. “But your ‘walk up and ask where the guy is’ strategy didn’t exactly work this time, so that’s going to be really different in Paris?”

Flynn waves that off. “One thing at a time.”

Grudgingly or not, everyone can agree on the sense of this. The first order of business is to get money, and a lot more of it. Their stolen purse and the few pennies from the dead Rittenhouse agent are not going to fund them to any substantial or long-term degree, and they obviously cannot run the risk of repeated thievery – all it takes it to be caught once to be hanged off the city walls. Finally, Flynn decides that they’re going to have to find the Jews. Barred from almost every other legitimate occupation, and because of church legislation that forbids Christians to make profit off usury and interest (they do anyway, just indirectly), Jews are the money-changers and loaners of medieval Europe, an essential but extremely uneasy economic cogwheel. Especially before crusades, anti-Semitic violence tends to spike, kings expel them from their lands to make a point about their Christian values, and the stereotype of the shifty, money-grubbing Jew is thus one that Christendom conveniently forgets its own role in making. Flynn informs them that the Jews have been expelled from France twice in recent decades – once in 1182 and again in 1192, after the Bray incident – but that only applies to the lands under French royal control. Since Normandy is under English jurisdiction, and because Richard made a law in 1194 to legally protect the Jews and establish penalties for persecuting them, French Jews have hurried to settle in Plantagenet territories. In a city the size of Rouen, there will be at least one lending house.

It takes them a while, but they find one. The problem of communication then rears its ugly head again, but the Jewish lender, Baruch ben Eliezer, summons his brother Simon, who has spent time in Germany and speaks the language. This is, of course, Middle High German rather than modern German, because nothing can ever be simple, but it’s close enough for Flynn and Wyatt to follow, as long as Simon speaks slowly. Once it is established that they would like to borrow a fair amount, the haggling starts. There is a certain amount of guilt in taking out a loan that you know you are never going to repay due to vanishing back to the future, but that is definitely something they do not have the luxury of worrying about.

With Simon serving as translator for his brother, Flynn and Wyatt manage to make some progress. There is yet another curveball in whether they want the money in _livres parisis,_ French legal tender, or in good old pound sterling, which they will need in English territory. They decide to split the difference and take half and half. The systems are roughly the same, but in reverse – twenty sols to a denier, twelve deniers to a livre, but twelve pence to a shilling, twenty shillings to a pound, because fuck you, that’s why. They are also several hundred years away from special coins for different amounts, so everything has to be counted out in sols or pence. Paper money isn’t much of a thing, because the Knights Templar are still a crusading order and haven’t yet settled down to comfortable sedentary banking, in which capacity they essentially invent the modern system (and get famously destroyed by Philip IV in 1307). After all, there is no way for you to carry around a paper note (paper itself being a rare and expensive item) without a partner house somewhere else that promises to exchange and honor it. Lucy is trying to explain as much of this as she knows in a whisper to Rufus, who increasingly looks as if he regrets ever helping to invent a time machine.

At last, Flynn (who has had to do most of this as Wyatt is also completely lost) agrees on a fairly generous amount, but Baruch then (understandably) wants some collateral. This is a hiccup they have not considered, and threatens to derail the entire transaction, but Lucy, thinking quickly, gets to her feet. She pulls off her earrings and her locket, and nods at Flynn and Wyatt. “I’m sorry,” she says in an undertone. “We have to.”

They frown at her, before understanding. Neither of them look happy, and Lucy doesn’t like it either, as she clicks open the locket, slides Amy’s picture out, and hides it in her shoe. But after a pause, both men reach for their wedding rings, tugging them slowly off their hands. Wyatt hasn’t had time to wear his again for very long, and thus at least knows how his finger feels without it, but it’s clear that Flynn feels like he’s severing a limb. Must never have taken it off since the night Lorena died, a thin white strip around the base of his ring finger, as he stares at it like something naked and strange. Lucy hates to ask it of him, of them, but they have nothing else to trade, and time is running short.

Slowly, they slide the earrings, locket, and rings to Baruch’s side of the table, as he is either satisfied with their face value or can see that they are meaningful enough to make parting difficult, and they will thus put some effort into their retrieval. He and Flynn clasp hands on the deal, and Simon goes to get the money. Once it’s been passed over in a rough sack, Flynn takes it, nods curtly, and strides out of the counting house without another word.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy says quietly, when they’re outside. “I’m sorry, we didn’t – ”

“It’s fine, Lucy.” He doesn’t look at her. “We did what we had to do. All of you, let’s get moving. Sometime before the thirteenth century would be nice.”

They take a moment to divide the money into four portions and hide it on their persons, so that if (heaven forfend) they are robbed or otherwise meet with misfortune, they are less likely to lose it all (and to avoid putting the stress of being responsible for all of it on one person). As they do, Lucy looks at Flynn and Wyatt’s bare fingers, can feel the absence of the familiar weight of her locket around her neck, thinks of the buried, broken Lifeboat. Yes, this mission is different, and not just in Rittenhouse upping the game. They are all leaving irreplaceable pieces of themselves in the past, things they cannot easily get back, or may never. It’s always been what they have to do, they’ve all come to accept that now, but sometimes, there are things that are harder than killing.

(Killing, after all, can become easy. It shouldn’t, but it does. Perhaps it has, and that is the worst part.)

“Lucy?” Wyatt calls. “Come on, let’s go.”

Lucy jumps. “Sorry. I’m – I’m coming.”

He glances at her, knowing her well enough to sense that there was something else behind that disconnection, but Lucy shakes her head and musters up a smile. She and Wyatt are working on fixing things, but it’s not what it was before, not as easy or as instinctive to open up to him, and she isn’t sure when it might be again. She finds that she has to fight against the tendency to run solo, at least in her head, when she still has to be the Time Team’s leader and go on with this and make sure the boys are playing nice (or at least nice-ish) and pull the gang together. She understands Flynn’s decision to go rogue more than she wants to admit. At least that way, you’re only responsible for yourself, only answer to yourself, and sometimes – often – it sounds nice.

Lucy pushes that out of her head, reminds herself that her boys have flaws and foibles but they’re hers, they’re _hers,_ and she wouldn’t change them for anything, and follows them down toward the river. According to Flynn, they should hopefully be able to buy passage on a boat heading down the Seine to Paris, as that’s definitely the quickest way to travel the eighty-odd miles between here and there. They don’t have horses, and their loan, while substantial enough to maintain them for a while if they are careful, is not going to come close to the purchase of four riding palfreys, even secondhand. A cart could take God knows how long. There is, as Flynn remarks with black amusement, nothing to make you miss the French railways and their annual strike more than trying to travel anywhere in 1195.

Yet again, it is a laborious runaround to make themselves understood, but they just say “Chastel de Louvre” and “Paris” a lot, which are at least familiar. The merchant whose vaguely dubious craft they are trying to hitch a ride on clearly wants to drive a harder bargain, but after a few wary looks at Flynn, thinks the better of it. The deal is struck, they mime their thanks, and shuffle on board.

Lucy’s first reaction is an immediate case of buyer’s remorse. Not that the boat is any worse than they could reasonably expect, but it’s. . . small. Everything exists on a scaled-down level in this world, but nowhere is it more apparent than here. The compartment for them to sleep in is barely more than a large coffin, stretched over with sun-faded canvas, and it abuts the similar no-frills quarters for the crew. Lucy managed being shut in the car trunk in 1955 with Wyatt there to distract her, but yeah, that doesn’t seem like an option this time, especially not for three days or however long it is going to take them to travel downriver with no outboard motor. She stalls. “I – I don’t think I can go in there.”

Wyatt glances at her, understanding the problem. Then he says, “We can make a place for you on the deck, I’m sure. As long as you won’t be underfoot, but yeah.”

Lucy isn’t sure what to say, even as she can tell that Wyatt is trying to be thoughtful and considerate of her wishes. Which is a nice change, after he. . . well. . . wasn’t, but she also half-doesn’t want to let him just do a few favors and call it square. He hurt her, he hurt her a lot, and she has been burying it down deep, somewhere to deal with it later, when she has the luxury. She doesn’t blame him, and she does, and it’s just easier to subsume it all into the mission. It’s never been clearer, after all, that they have to.

After a slightly awkward pause, Wyatt clears his throat and turns away, and they all busy themselves with finding some way to survive this trip and not completely hate each other’s guts when it’s done. Personal space (or privacy) is clearly going to be forgotten about, both for them and half a dozen strangers, and Lucy briefly thinks that just damn well _walking_ to Paris surely couldn’t be that bad. She could still jump off and try.

Alas, however, she stays on. They get underway in about another hour, setting the sails to take advantage of a decent wind, which Lucy hopes will speed things up. She sits on the stern and watches Rouen recede out of sight behind the chalk bluffs, trying to muffle the constant low-level hum of anxiety in her head. The strangeness and distance of this is really starting to sink in. For the first time, the past does in fact feel like another planet.

They sail steadily as twilight falls, then dark. In the total absence of city lights or airplanes overhead or any other kind of modern noise or pollution, the stars are stunning, and the air smells green and rich and damp. The crew’s supper, which they share, is rich dark stew and chunks of bread to dip in, which isn’t bad. The team almost forgets to cross themselves and mumble the Lord’s Prayer in Latin before eating (or at least Flynn helpfully mumbles it in Latin, and everyone else badly copies him). He and Wyatt have spent the afternoon learning how to help sail the boat, so at least they haven’t been arguing, and while they and the crew can’t talk to each other, they’ve quickly picked up a few useful words and gestures. It’s hard to guess how old the sailors are. Some of them are young, sixteen or seventeen, while others are wind –and-sun-worn, some with missing teeth or shortened fingers, who might be thirty or thirty-five but look considerably older from hard work and meager nutrition. Living to sixty is a ripe old age for kings with comfortable homes and plenty of food. Flynn, at forty-three, is a senior citizen. (No one, however, should dare to say this aloud.)

After dinner, the boat drops anchor (to the clear irritation of Flynn and Wyatt, who want them to keep going – this is taking long enough and Rittenhouse has at least another uninterrupted week of evil scheming to look forward to) and the crew prepares to sleep. Flynn gets up and has a low-voiced argument with the captain (he seems to be learning Old French the fastest, which makes sense since he speaks at least five languages – he isn’t fluent, but he tends to get his point across, one way or the other). He is clearly insisting that they be allowed to continue in the dark, and the captain looks at him as if he has two heads. You can’t navigate by sight in the nighttime, can’t look out for hazards or rocks unless you know the river very well and can predict where they will be. The modern expectation of being able to get to places fast, conveniently, and from point A to point B simply does not exist here. There might be a road, but there’s no guarantee that it will go where you want to, or in anything close to the most direct route. There might be a bridge to cross a river, but nowhere close to you, and if not, you need to know how to find a ford. There are no such thing as traveler’s maps – the _Mappa mundi,_ map of the world, is a rare and valuable artistic item, and nowhere close to geographically accurate anyway. People do travel, and surprising distances. It’s just all the more amazing to the modern person, who has technology to do this for them, how much.

The captain is clearly wondering what their hurry is, but Flynn finally persuades him to light a lantern and pay him a little more – besides, there’s still the wind, they would be fools to waste it. Flynn and Wyatt accordingly take charge of showing off what fast learners they are, with the clear implication that if they run into a rock like morons and sink the boat, their own heads be it. But if nothing else, both of them are aware that Lucy (and Rufus) are on board, and thus that sinking the boat is a bad idea. The anchor is winched up, and off they go again.

Rufus helps for a while, but starts yawning as it gets later, and crawls down into the sleeping coffin, pulling the canvas over his head. Lucy has no idea how to sail and Flynn and Wyatt have it under control, they don’t appear to need her interference. Instead, she sits and watches them work, the way their arms and shoulders move in the low lanternlight, the way they seem able to pick up small glances and cues from the other, hauling in ropes or changing direction with the tiller or sighting for any irregularities in the river ahead. They do understand each other very well, even if most of their experience has come in attempting to kill the other (at least until a still-rather-recent point). If they could ever quit the bickering, they’d be unstoppable. (Or maybe it fuels them. Who knows.)

At last, despite her insistence on staying awake, Lucy’s eyelids start to feel like lead, and she has to crawl down next to Rufus. The claustrophobia is not quite as bad if they pull the canvas away and she can see the sky, and the blankets are old but soft, with a folded-up grain sack for a pillow. The swaying of the boat and Flynn and Wyatt’s murmuring to each other is oddly soothing, as is Rufus breathing slowly next to her. As long as she focuses on that, and shoves everything else out, Lucy feels all right, and so, somehow, she manages to sleep.

When she opens her eyes again, there’s a pale yellow glow painting the boards above her, a coolness in the air, and when she sits up and squints, she sees thick veils of mist rising off the water, eerie as glass. There is no way to tell how far they’ve come, but she feels as if it’s within the realm of possibility that they get to Paris today. The merchant knows the river fairly well, and according to him, they’re near Mantes, in the Vexin, the tiny and strategically important sliver of territory between Normandy and France that is constantly bickered over by the rival kings. He is still confused at why they’re in such haste, but at least the lack of a common language means he can’t pry too much.

It’s another thirty miles from Mantes to Paris, under an hour in a car, but here, of course, everything is an exercise in delayed gratification. There is a little breakfast, though not what anyone would call bounteous. Flynn and Wyatt all but collapse after eating it, having been working all night, and spend the next several hours conked out in the sleeping coffin. Lucy looks down at them and thinks it’s almost adorable to see them curled up next to each other, even if unavoidably so from the lack of space. The crew has been staring at her out of the corner of their eyes, as she is the only woman aboard, but Lucy hasn’t felt like they’re leering; rather, they have been scrupulously polite to her. They seem equally fascinated by Rufus, and slightly superstitiously awed. It’s clear they think he could possibly transform into something dangerous, and they shouldn’t turn their backs for too long.

The morning trickles by. Lucy wants to pace, but yet again, no room. As they get closer to Paris, they pass other canal boats and makeshift small craft, begin to see more signs of life on the river banks, and people watering their animals and drawing buckets. They pass under a few fragile-looking wooden bridges which makes Lucy hope they don’t collapse (as Flynn is happy to remark, Philip of France himself has particular misfortune with bridges giving out from under him) and pole through the robin-egg shallows, able to see a shadow on the horizon that slowly begins turning into a city. It’s early afternoon by the time they’re close enough to see more – and. Well.

Rouen is definitely a rinkidink frontier town next to Paris. Right now, its population is over one hundred thousand, and will more than double by the start of the fourteenth century. The Université de Paris, the second-oldest such establishment in the Western world, has served as a center of learning in art, medicine, law, and theology for several centuries already (though it won’t be officially chartered for a few more years). Notre Dame started construction in 1163, and will be worked on until the mid-fourteenth century, and as well as the Louvre, Philip II has sponsored a number of large-scale new buildings and fortresses, including the massive new city walls. Paris is a proper city – noisy, dirty, crowded, cultured, full of deeply unimpressed French people, as it is at all points in its history. As they sail up to one of the quays and tie in, Lucy’s head rotates in all directions, trying and failing to take it in. Finding _anything_ in this mess seems completely impossible.

They thank the captain and give him another few coins, then climb carefully off the boat onto the slippery, fish-smelling cobbles. Lucy tries to map her few days spent in modern Paris onto this insane labyrinth, and then decides there is no way. She holds tightly to Flynn’s arm, more intimidated than she wants to admit. They have to stay out of the way as heavily loaded carts keep thudding past, into the crooked streets. Roofs lean steeply over the alleys, throwing the lower levels into shadow. People of every rank and character jostle by – priests, clerks, students, masters, fishermen, servants, soldiers, mercenaries, merchants, urchins, nobles, serfs, beggars, orphans, whores, thieves, and murderers breeding thick as fleas on a dog. The air has the pungent reek of too many people in too close a space, and they all speak a drawling, colloquial French far too fast to follow. It’s deafening and blinding and feels like walking into a circular saw. But that is exactly what the Time Team has to do.

The one hope is that there’s no way Rittenhouse can immediately pick them out in this chaos, or even know that they’ve arrived. Lucy takes a deep breath and lifts her skirt with her free hand. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s go to Paris, then?”

“This place is supposed to be a lot more Instagrammable,” Rufus remarks dryly. “Doesn’t really look like a romantic honeymoon destination.”

“Give it a few hundred years, I suppose?” Lucy slips on some unidentifiable offal, and Flynn grabs her quickly before she can fall. They were, of course, here in 1927, the Lost Generation in glamorous cabarets and clubs and restaurants, Josephine Baker and Ernest Hemingway and her trying to persuade Flynn not to kill Charles Lindbergh after Karl snatched her in the catacombs. There is certainly something more than a little (ha, more than a little) bizarre about returning seven hundred and thirty-two years earlier, with Flynn now the one protectively at her side. Wyatt missed the earlier Paris trip, after all; he was in the clink for jacking the Lifeboat. That was the one where Bam-Bam got killed.

Lucy’s lips press together, and she concentrates on not slipping again. They toil up to the top of the street and try to find a good vantage point. If they can spot the Île-de-la-Cité, the small island in the Seine with both Notre Dame and the royal palace, they can have a rough idea of where they are. The Louvre is just across from it, on the north bank. Obviously, it is not yet a world-famous art museum; it is a castle under construction, and if Rittenhouse is in fact there, the team needs to be careful about showing themselves. Surprise is their one advantage.

It’s getting late in the afternoon, and there will be a curfew at dusk; people don’t go wandering around after nightfall, unless they want to get into trouble. That means they will also need to find an inn, which is obviously not a case of just picking the nearest nice little B&B that looks the least like a tourist rip-off. There is no guarantee that they get a room to themselves, much less a bed. Lucy can manage sleeping in close quarters with her boys, but with a total stranger, or two – God, please no. And it’s another day they’re losing to go after Rittenhouse.  Isn’t there _any_ way to speed this up?

The answer is, of course, no. They spot the Île-de-la-Cité, thank God, and then find an inn relatively nearby, but when they walk in and try their best to ask for a room, the innkeeper starts yelling and pointing at Rufus. They can’t make out much, except for “Saracen.” Clearly, the man thinks that he is a heathen devil sprung forth to corrupt the souls of the good Christians beneath his roof, and they find themselves back out on the streets forthwith. “Hello, racism, my old friend,” Rufus remarks bitterly. “Was wondering when you were going to show up!”

“Yeah, no offense, Flynn.” Wyatt rubs his fingers between his eyes. They’re all hungry and sore and starting to want a shower and feeling totally disoriented, as if they’ve spun too many times on the merry-go-round at the fair and have no idea how to make it stop. “The medieval era pretty much sucks. And I can say that now as an informed observer.”

Flynn looks as if he’ll pretend he didn’t just hear that. He takes a better grip on Lucy’s arm and stubbornly plows along the streets, scattering people half his size like a Star Destroyer, until they finally find another inn. This one is farther away from the Île, but at least its proprietor does not have a panic attack at the sight of Rufus, though he still eyes him suspiciously. They pay extra, again, to ensure a private room, and the innkeeper shows them up a creaking, narrow stair (Flynn has to bend almost double) to a dark hallway, where a door at the end opens into the room. It isn’t bad – almost charming, with a bed, a chair, a trunk, a rack of unlit candles, a bowl of water for washing, a perch for a favored hawk, and a brazier for warmth. A small window with thick, streaky green glass lets in some light, though it’s impossible to see through it, and reasonably fresh rushes strew the floor. At least it does not smell as if anything has died in here recently. Toilet facilities are a wooden privy closet down the hall, shared with the rest of the floor.

Once the door is shut, everyone decides that no matter if Rittenhouse is currently Dan-Brown-villaining up the place or not, they’ve just had enough for the day. They don’t have enough time to go out and come back before sunset anyway, and they can hear the deep, booming bells of Notre Dame sounding Vespers. It seems like a miracle that they’ve made it this far, and Rufus drops onto the bed. “So,” he remarks. “No soft-core hotel porn to buy on Pay-Per-View, at least?”

“Too bad,” Wyatt says. “Because I miss TV, that is. Not, uh, not porn.”

Everyone coughs and dutifully avoids each other’s eyes. They are dusty, sweaty, and smelling distinctly grungy, but all they can really do is splash the water on their faces and hands. They also don’t have fresh clothes to change into, Flynn is still in his increasingly battered 1799 clothes, and it’s possible Rittenhouse has agents circulating through the city looking for them. They could just be arrogant and assume they never made it, but given as they left a lookout in Rouen, they clearly aren’t taking any chances.

The team stumbles downstairs and into the common room, since the only thing stronger than their desire to pass out for five years is their abject starvation. They manage to snag a table and the attention of the bar wench, and after a wait that is in fact probably shorter than that of a fashionable Parisian restaurant at peak hours, they get their dinner. It’s a loaf of dark rye bread and bowls of soup with well-boiled cabbages, leeks, and onions, and chunks of meat that are probably rabbit. There are also apples, as fruit is plentifully available, and tankards of the home-brewed ale. They have to fight against the modern suspicion that anything without health board inspections and food safety standards is liable to poison them, but Flynn has said that people generally know how to cook, and they’ve gotten this far without violent diarrhea. They pick up their wooden spoons and dig in.

They still can’t understand the conversation around them, but it’s almost soothing, and the four of them glance at each other with brief, shy smiles, pleased and proud of their efforts in fighting so hard to outsmart a world that remains so strange and difficult to their coddled modern sensibilities. “Hey, all right, credit where credit is due,” Rufus says to Flynn. “You’ve come through in the clutch. We’d definitely be screwed otherwise.”

“Lucy could manage,” Wyatt says loyally, if perhaps not entirely truthfully. “I’m sure we’d have figured something out.”

“No, I really don’t think I could.” Lucy is proud of how much she knows, but part of that is being aware when it’s absolutely bupkis. “You’ve done well, Garcia. Thank you.”

Flynn looks almost taken aback, as if he doesn’t know what to do with the odd phenomenon of being helpful to a team, and downright embarrassed when they briefly hoist their tankards in his direction before drinking. They power quickly through the bread and stew, and are just about to head back upstairs when the door opens, bringing in a waft of cool night air. The heads of the dinner crowd turn in unison, and a hush falls as they see it’s four soldiers dressed in chainmail hauberks and wearing swords. Their tabards, the sleeveless tunics worn over the chainmail, are in French royal colors: blue with golden fleur-de-lys. Their eyes flicker around the taproom, and Lucy prays with all her heart that they’re just here looking for an errant pickpocket. She has felt both Flynn and Wyatt go stiff, and puts her hands on their knees under the table, making them glance around with startled expressions. No, _no_ guns, not right away, no fighting. Not until –

The captain of the soldiers turns his head as if drawn by an invisible fishhook, and spots them. He regards them for a long moment, then starts to wade through the crowd, as people pull back and stools and benches scrape. He reaches them, considers, then nods.

“Good evening,” he says, in perfect English. “You will please come with me.”


	3. Chapter 3

The streets of Paris are uneven, muddy, and dark, and Flynn is having to concentrate on keeping both his footing and an eye on Lucy. He and Wyatt already decided with a look that it’s too dangerous to try to punch and/or shoot their way out of this, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for a later alteration of the plan. The captain of the guards has to be Rittenhouse, or at least Rittenhouse-trained – how else would he be able to speak modern English to them? Is it possible that Rittenhouse isn’t just days ahead of them, but weeks, or months? Their jump here was so uncontrolled, like a windsurfer being pulled along in the wake of a motorboat, that they still don’t know when they arrived relative to the Mothership, or even how they consciously did at all. If the machines run on a closed time-like curve, the amount of fold and twist in the fabric of spacetime necessary to bend so far back on itself might have created a maelstrom effect. In other words, Rufus could not possibly have jumped the Lifeboat anywhere – or when – else. It would have just gotten stuck in the Mothership’s massive gravitational anomaly and dragged down here anyway. But like debris washing up on the beach – basically, after all, exactly how they landed – there is no reason it has to have been anywhere close. Did Rittenhouse do this on purpose? Frankly, Flynn isn’t sure they’re that smart. But since 1195 is so very far from 2018 (in more ways than one), farther than either of the machines have traveled before, maybe this jump did mess something up. Something more than history, something that can’t be changed.

That, however ominous a thought, is also a very unhelpful one, and Flynn shoves it away. He glances around for Lucy again. They are being escorted toward the portcullis of the gate that guards the bridge to the Île-de-la-Cité, and Flynn feels a cold lump of foreboding in his stomach. If they’re going here, they’re going directly to the royal dungeons, rather than some noisome local hoosgow for small-time miscreants. Prisoners held at the king’s pleasure have almost no chance of getting out, or at least not for years. Maybe they took the punching thing off the table too early. Have Rittenhouse finally realized that gloating never goes well for villains, and are intending to chuck them in here and throw away the key? Or –

Flynn is on the very hair-trigger of a considerable scene, but Lucy is too far away for him to reach easily, and he feels oddly obligated for Rufus as well (Wyatt can take care of himself, he’ll be fine). Besides, there has to be some kind of explanation for this. Rittenhouse probably wants information (which they’re not going to get) or satisfaction (which Flynn intends to see they don’t). If they wanted to just kill them, they’d have taken them down by the Seine and tipped the bodies in (though there are guaranteed to be some of their own among them). No. Taking them here means something else is afoot. Something bigger.

The guards shout up at their fellows on the gatehouse, and chains rattle and clank as the portcullis is winched up, mossy iron teeth dripping with river water. The team is marched forward by their respective soldiers, Wyatt and Flynn exchange another look, and once more – for the time being – consent. They still have their guns, hidden beneath their jackets (or tunic, in Wyatt’s case) but that’s only an ultimate last-resort option. And no matter how the saying might go about bringing a knife to a gun fight, Flynn would not like to take his chances against these particular knives unless he has to. Someone swinging a piece of metal at you that is three feet long and extremely sharp is not a prospect to take lightly, especially when they know exactly what the hell they’re doing with it. Boys start training for knighthood at seven years old. Even the best-drilled, crack-shot special-ops soldier in the modern world didn’t enlist until he was eighteen.

Torches flicker from rough iron sconces as they pass under another portcullis, and enter the main courtyard – the bailey, it’s better known as. Flynn is briefly struck by the whiteness and sharpness of the stones in the walls and in the buildings of the royal palace. He has wandered around plenty of old castles in his day – he used to live in Dubrovnik, Croatia, which is a medieval old-city jewel box – but they’ve all been that, _old._ They’ve had several centuries to slip and scuff and wear, to settle down to comfortable disarray. This one is so new that you can almost smell the sawdust. It looks like a Hollywood set or a modern replica, rather than the real thing. Which is the irony, of course, because it is.

“So,” Flynn says, as pleasantly as he can. “We’re going to visit someone?”

“Yes.” The captain smiles at him, not in a way to make Flynn feel better about this (although that was not likely to happen anyway). “Some formalities. To see why you are here, is all.”

“You do that for all the newcomers to the city? _And_ speak to them in English?” Flynn can’t quite tell if the captain is a native speaker or not. The version of English presently in currency is early Middle English – which, while not quite as confusing to the modern eye as Anglo-Saxon Old English, is still nothing like its twenty-first-century iteration. “Cut the crap. You and your friends – ” he nods at the other three guards marching Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus, has to fight an urge to tear the bastard’s hand off Lucy’s arm and then throttle him – “you’re all Rittenhouse. Let’s just skip to that and – ”

The captain gives him what seems to be a genuinely blank look, rendering Flynn momentarily stumped. _What_ is going on here? He is baffled enough not to struggle as they enter a hall with a high hammer-beam roof, blue banners embroidered with the fleur-de-lys draped from the rafters. A carved mahogany chair under an ornate baldachin is set on a raised dais at the end, and Flynn screeches to a halt. Wait a damn minute, is this –

The thought barely has time to cross his head when the soldiers stop, the captain says something to another of his fellows by the door, and the other man nods once and turns smartly, vanishing out of it. There follow a very uncomfortable several minutes, as Flynn, Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus catch each other’s eyes and mouth silent variants of _what the hell?_ They, to say the least, were expecting to be jumped or beaten or thrown into the dungeon (Flynn happens to know that iron maidens were a nineteenth-century myth used to bolster the “barbaric dark ages!” narrative that the Victorians were fond of, but that doesn’t mean that whatever is awaiting them would be pleasant). This appears instead to be the throne room, and _that_ is an entirely new can of worms.

Right now, as Flynn has told the others, the king of France is Philip II, of the Capetian dynasty established in the late tenth century. He is sometimes known as Philip Augustus, originally for the month of his birth, but after his forty-three-year-long reign, from 1180-1223, with its impressive territorial conquests and brilliant, ruthless centralization of the French crown, there are plenty who see it as a fitting imperial epithet. He is presently just thirty years old, but has been a king since the age of fifteen. He is cynical, clever, clear-eyed, calculating, shrewd, bitter, jealous, and obsessed – especially with Richard the Lionheart, his great rival, who gets the best of him in nearly everything until his unexpected death in four years. There is plenty of conjecture as to how their notoriously intimate and passionate friendship, forged in the summer of 1187 as they were both plotting against Richard’s father, Henry II of England, has gone so wrong. But if the team is here to see _Philip –_ Flynn has lost all notion of what is going on, or who can possibly want what from them.

He shifts his weight restlessly. Lucy and the other two are looking at him, waiting for him to history them out of this – Lucy’s job, usually, and Flynn feels an odd reticence at supplanting her. But he can’t do much when they’re still being watched by the guards. Do they all speak English, or just the captain? How long are they going to be kept waiting? It might be a king’s prerogative, but Garcia Flynn has had a goddamn bitch of a few days and he just wants, if that’s fine with everyone, to sleep.

At last, there’s a rustle at the door, and the guards snap to attention. There’s no trumpet fanfare, nothing but a tapestry imperiously thrust aside, and a communal inclination of heads, hands on hearts. Flynn does the same, and the trio follows his lead, as a slender, dark man, with shrewd green eyes, neat black beard, and a cool, haughty manner, strides into the room. He’s wearing a high-necked blue tunic picked with gilted embroidery, rings on his fingers, and a golden circlet on his head. It’s clear, as if it wasn’t by all the bowing, that this is the head honcho, the main man, and Flynn, after trying to decide if they should wait to be addressed or humbly acknowledge the king’s presence, goes with the latter. Unlike in later centuries, when the honorific would be “Votre Majesté,” it hasn’t come into common use for royalty yet. The title, shared between kings, bishops, lords, and pretty much any dignitary below emperor rank (and it can be pretty much anything for them, because they’re an emperor, fuck you) is “ _Vostre Grace._ ”

It is this which Flynn murmurs deferentially, as the team again copies him. Philip Capet eyes them with considerable judgment, clearly hearing their atrocious accents, but does not immediately comment upon them. Then he turns to the captain, asks something, and when it is answered, looks back at them. He appears to be asking which of them is in charge here.

For once, although Wyatt might normally have a problem with letting Flynn claim that role, he hurriedly steps back, so he doesn’t get stuck having to do this. “It’s him,” he says, and points. “Definitely him.”

Flynn rolls his eyes, even as he wonders if that counts as a show of trust. He turns back to Philip, who is waiting with an exquisitely arched eyebrow. This is a man who can evidently give Flynn a run for his money in the sassy face Olympics, even if Philip is a head and a half shorter than him (aw, how nice, Wyatt isn’t the midget in the room anymore). Flynn clears his throat. _“C’est moi.”_

“Great,” he hears Rufus mutter. “This is just who I wanted in charge of not getting us thrown into ye olde dungeon.”

With a valiant effort of will, Flynn does not turn around and strangle them, even as he hears Lucy shushing them like a stern kindergarten teacher. Philip utters a tiny sigh, a sign that they are treating the royal presence with considerable levity and they should knock it off. Then he says, “Can you provincials in fact understand me?”

It’s in Old French, of course, but since Philip speaks the closest thing there is to a standard, the educated Parisian or court French that modern French will develop from, the sort of thing that _l’Acad_ _é_ _mie_ members have special dreams about at night (though really, Flynn doesn’t want to know what those are), Flynn can indeed follow him, with effort. He blinks in abject gratitude, as it feels like grasping the Rosetta Stone after years of ignorance. “Yes. What is the language that your man there speaks?” It’s dangerous, going for the “did you know your bodyguard might be Rittenhouse?” ploy right off, but they need to get a few things straight.

“He says it is your native tongue.” Philip stares back at him unreadably. “Perhaps you should tell me?”

Well played, Flynn has to admit. A king does not give information, he asks for it, and Philip isn’t going to tip his hand on who – or what – he thinks they are. There is an awkward moment as Flynn can hear the boys whispering to Lucy if she can understand it, Lucy answering that she can get more of it than usual, and all of them shutting up sharpish as Philip flicks that viper’s gaze on them. “You have a talkative retinue of servants, do you not? Is it also the custom where you come from for them to gossip behind their masters’ backs?”

Flynn really wishes Wyatt understood that, just because the look on his face would have been worth the whole trip, but manages to keep his own face straight. “That is my wife, my lord. And my business partner – ” he points at Rufus – “and manservant.”

“Your business partner?” Philip considers the unfamiliar term, then glances at Rufus with a cutting expression. “A Saracen? So you _are_ English, then? The English king is the one known to keep consort and commerce with all manner of heathens and unchristian people, after all. And you certainly speak the French language poorly enough.”

Flynn opens his mouth, reminds himself that no good can come of pointing out to Philip that the English (at least the upper classes) and the French speak essentially the same language at this point, and shakes his head. “No. We – we are Castilian, Your Grace. From Spain.”

“I am aware where Castile is.” Philip studies him with hooded eyes. It’s not altogether clear that he believes it. “What are your names?”

“I am Garcia.” It’s a good old Spanish name, already used for a while in one or other of the regional dynasties (Navarrese or Aragonese, Flynn thinks) and doesn’t need to be changed. “My wife, Lucy.” Likewise an old French name that is current, even if more often used as a place name; a Godfrey de Lucy is the bishop of somewhere in England right now. Winchester? Fuck it, Flynn can’t remember, and it’s not important. “My partner is Ramiro, and my servant is William.” When in doubt for a male name in twelfth-century France, just pick William. Considering Flynn could have stuck him with something like Odo or Boso (both old and honorable French names, he will have you know), Wyatt should be grateful.

As he says this, Flynn watches the English-speaking guard very carefully. If he’s Rittenhouse, there should be some flicker of awareness at this (even though, frankly, he’s probably guessed who they are from the moment he saw them in the tavern, and doesn’t need the confirmation). But nothing. He’s perfected the job of acting like a piece of furniture; he is here to protect the king’s person, not to presume to listen to his conversations or interact in his affairs. If he is a sleeper agent, he’s been here long enough to learn the drill, which again – worrisome. There’s a long pause as Philip takes all this in. Then he says, “And when did you arrive in Paris? Recently?”

“Just tonight, Your Grace. We were… welcomed by your man there and brought here. We are still not entirely certain as to why.”

There is another pause. Then Philip raises a hand. “Leave us.”

There is an orderly rustle of movement as the guards pivot on their heels and file out without a backward glance; the king speaks, they obey. It’s a power Flynn can’t help but envy, even as he knows it’s the power Rittenhouse wants: that unquestioning, instant submission to one ruler, the arbitrator of a universe built on unshakeable certainty: the people answer to the lord who answers to the king who answers to God who (at least according to them) speaks through the church. This is not a place of postmodern political theory or grey moral relativism or atheism, or even usually agnosticism. This is not a time for considering yourself to have a special, individual destiny, over and above the role in which you have been born and raised. You are part of many, the pillar of the whole. Having seen this world for himself, Flynn understands a little more. You step out of line, you try to detach yourself from the community you need to survive, and you will die.

In any event, Philip dismissing his guards clearly means that he doesn’t think Flynn and the others will try to attack him – which they won’t, obviously, they’re not here to do Rittenhouse’s job for them – and without the potential Rittenhouse mole eavesdropping, they can perhaps speak more freely. Philip moves to the sideboard and pours a goblet of wine, then beckons, inviting Flynn to do the same. The king won’t serve him, obviously, but he can serve himself in the king’s presence, hinting that there might be some more candor in their interactions. Philip then glances over at the other three. “And your lady may take refreshment as well, of course. Madame?”

Lucy blinks, then drops an awkward little curtsy. It’s adorable, even if probably completely anachronistic, and Flynn bites his cheek. She ventures over, having obviously heard some currents of the conversation but not sure how much to let on. Philip is behaving as a well-born lord should, extending courteous conduct to the lady (though he has kept his second wife locked up in a tower without enough food, refusing to acknowledge her as his queen, since inexplicably repudiating her the morning after their wedding in 1193) but that does not mean he expects to hear or value her input in any way. Lucy pours a goblet of wine for herself, then takes a sip. Her eyes widen, which Flynn could have warned her about. Everyday beer and ale is watered down, since most people have to drink it as a common beverage, but wine – an expensive and time-consuming product cultivated in vineyards and sold at gourmand prices – doesn’t pull its punches.

“It’s very – very good, Your Grace,” Lucy says, only slightly hoarsely. “From Champagne?”

“Your wife has a refined sense of taste, my lord.” Philip looks at Flynn as if this is to his credit, not hers. “We import most of our spirits from there. My older sister – half-sister – is still the dowager countess, after my nephew never came home from Jerusalem. Not much of a loss, really.” He shrugs.

Lucy opens her mouth as if to offer sympathy, but Flynn surreptitiously steps on her foot. What Philip actually means is that his nephew, Henry II of Champagne, became king of Jerusalem at the end of the Third Crusade and is living there – at least for another few years, Flynn recalls that he dies young – quite happily, not that he was killed. But since Henry was a close ally of his other uncle, Richard (Marie of Champagne, his mother, is the daughter of Louis VII, Philip’s father, and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard’s mother, from their first marriage to each other – _incestuous_ does not begin to describe the family trees), as far as Philip’s concerned, he’s basically dead. Philip doesn’t particularly get along with Marie either. In fact, there are very few people, especially in his extended family, that Philip Augustus gets along with, which is mostly the way he seems to like it. He’s come here to win, not to make friends. Flynn can respect that about a man.

There’s another pause as they all genteelly sip their wine. Lucy is taking small mouthfuls, and Wyatt and Rufus are obviously wondering if they just get to stand here and awkwardly watch everyone else drink with their new best buddy, the king of France. But a Saracen and a manservant rank well below any tier of society that Philip is obligated to acknowledge or make any overture to, and so he continues to carry on as if they’re not even in the room. (God, Flynn wishes he could do that.) Then, when the dictates of hospitality have been fulfilled, Philip sets his goblet down and fixes Flynn with a cool, appraising stare. “I have been informed that you have considerable skill as a routier.”

It’s on the tip of Flynn’s tongue to ask who told him that, before he remembers that he doesn’t get to. _Routier_ means _mercenary,_ or a sword for hire, a man who makes his living being paid to fight in the various territorial wars across western Europe. They’re looked down on and disliked, even as they form a crucial part of most fighting forces. At least as long as it’s your standard skirmish warfare. They’re not the men to hold a fortress under siege; if a garrison resists until the bitter end, rather than coming out to surrender and make terms, the laws of war decree that they are to all be hanged or slaughtered without mercy when the castle is taken. Mercenaries, having a general concern for their skins, won’t do this, and hence will probably accept a payment from your enemy to hand over your castle to him. Richard himself has a feared mercenary captain, Mercadier, who’s served effectively as a co-dog of war. Is that what Philip wants? To also enlist some muscle without moral scruple? He does do that next year – hires a captain named Cadoc, who succeeds in wounding Richard during his attack on one of Philip’s castles – but that is 1196. This is 1195, and here Flynn – demonstrably, apparently, muscle without moral scruple – is. Standing right in front of him.

“I’ve… done that sort of thing,” Flynn says after a moment, carefully. “Yes.”

“Good.” Philip looks pleased. That can’t be good. “A man of your… presence, I would be dismayed if you did not. Well then, Garcia of Castile, if I may presume to such informality. I wish to engage your professional services.”

“You – ” Flynn blinks. “You what?”

“Did I misspeak the first time?”

No, Flynn thinks, no he did not, especially since Philip just pulled the twelfth-century equivalent of “did I fucking stutter, bitch?” This is _definitely_ not good. “I am a – former routier, Your Grace, I mean to say. I’m only a merchant these days.”

“Are you?” Philip keeps smiling. “Forgive me if I doubt that. Your very strange apparel, the way your hand keeps moving to – what is that you have with you, exactly? No, no, please do not remove it. I may feel threatened and call for my guards, and then this would go in an unfortunate direction. As well, you have not ceased to look around this hall since you entered it, nor ever to stand at your ease. I may not be the most valiant soldier, no lion-hearted hero to rampage across battlefields, but I am not untutored in the ways of war. Also, unless customs have _drastically_ changed in Spain – which I grant is entirely possible, what with all the Moorish invasions – I was not aware that it was permissible to lie to a king’s face. Do so again, and we can certainly arrange a different sort of welcome.”

Flynn shuts his mouth with a snap. He’s not used to feeling intimidated by other men at all, much less a man who stands maybe five-seven, five-eight, but he takes that like a backhand across the face. Philip continues to gaze at him. Again, he repeats, “Did I misspeak?”

“You did not, Your Grace.” Flynn grimaces. “I apologize for the discourtesy.”

“And before your lady?” Philip nods to Lucy, as if to say that he regrets that she has found herself attached to such an unchivalrous churl. (It may be true, but still.) It’s also a fairly clear threat that she’s standing right there, a useful hostage for Flynn’s good behavior if he keeps trying to weasel out, and that sends another chill down his spine. “Please, shall we attempt that again? Garcia of Castile, I wish to engage your professional services.”

“And what…” Flynn pauses to wet his lips. “What services would those be, Your Grace?”

“I wish you to travel to Poitiers,” Philip says. “My spies have brought me intelligence that the king of England is currently there, in company with a number of unusual people. You are to make a full report on what he is doing and who they are, and whether they are in any part a threat to me. If they are offering him some sort of advantage or tactic or anything else whatsoever, I desire it to be brought back and presented for my interest as well. Am I clear?”

Flynn’s stomach sinks slowly through his foot. On the one hand, this is exactly the information they’ve been after: Richard is in Poitiers, his hometown and capital city from his teenage days as count of Poitou and duke of Aquitaine, rather than Rouen, where he’s supposed to be right now, reconciling with his wife. Instead, he’s in another city (and another province) altogether, with Rittenhouse whispering God knows what suggestions in his ear. If Flynn knows Richard at all (that is, from books), they will have their work cut out and then some trying to manipulate him, but if it sounds like a good deal, there’s a chance that Richard could agree to it. And Philip – what? Wants Rittenhouse brought back to Paris, is willing to get in on absolutely anything, if it means Richard can’t use it against him? Someone has to have planted this idea, told Philip (mostly) who they are, whether the guard or the person that the guard reports to. Send the Time Team to fuck up history themselves – every interaction they have with Richard might lead him further away from what he’s originally supposed to do. _And_ with the added extra twist that if Richard finds out they’ve been sent by his mortal enemy to spy on him, he’ll kill them. Great!

“We…” Flynn starts, feeling winded. “Your Grace, that…”

“You have an objection, Garcia?”

“It sounds very… dangerous.”

Philip gives him a _no shit!_ look. “I was not aware that you were a man to recoil from danger. A craven routier? If that is the case, perhaps I can see why you went into the merchant trade. Much less risk in counting pennies. A disappointment, though, truly.”

Flynn racks his brains. They are not going to get away with refusing this offer to Philip’s face, they _do_ need to get to Richard and warn him about Rittenhouse – that’s the whole reason they’re here – and even the fairly clear proof that there is a sleeper agent somewhere in Philip’s court is less of a problem at the moment. It’s not like they have Skype or FaceTime or any way for Philip to immediately know what they’re doing. Word travels slowly. And if Rittenhouse is there, the Mothership must be somewhere in the vicinity. Maybe they can grab it and bomb out before Philip ever hears anything. A hopeful thought, even if probably a vastly over-optimistic one. Wouldn’t that be nice.

“You would… supply means for our travel?” Flynn asks at last. “Horses, provisions, clothes, the like?”

“If that would enable you to more conscientiously carry out the task I have asked of you, yes.” Philip inclines his head with faux humility. “Seeing as the lot of you are dressed like knaves to begin with, and should not at least give such insult as to stride into Richard’s court looking like that. Garments in your measure may be difficult to come by, but I will do my best. As for a fee, it will be payable upon your successful return. And perhaps your lady wife would wish to stay and enjoy the society of the court?”

“No,” Flynn blurts out, fast enough to be rude. There is no way in absolute hellfire that he is leaving Lucy behind as a hostage, which he knows damn well that she would be. No chance he’s leaving her alone, no certain chance of a reunion, with the sleeper agent probably just waiting for the opportunity. “We…” He reaches out and puts his arm around Lucy, pulling her close. “We are very fond of each other. She is a great help to me, Your Grace.”

“In matters of war? I have not yet met the woman that was.” Philip turns on his heel to pick up his goblet again, which is probably a good thing as he misses Lucy’s appalled little huff. “I find that excessive reliance on one’s wife is not a trait to be celebrated, frankly. But for such touching marital fidelity, I can allow it. And you will be taking those others as well?”

“Yes,” Flynn says. “We will go together, my lord, or we will not go at all.”

Lucy glances up at him, as if impressed by this display of solidarity, and Philip considers it. Finally he says, “Very well. You may take your manservant and the heathen. We will discuss the arrangements tomorrow – I break my fast after Lauds, you will join me then. In the meanwhile, it does grow quite late, and you must have had a wearying journey from… Castile. You and Lady Lucy may repair upstairs, I will have a chamber made ready. The other two may sleep in the hall with the rest of the serving folk.”

Flynn thinks that despite everything, this may be his favorite mission yet, especially when this arrangement is conveyed to Wyatt and Rufus. Wyatt looks like he is about to spit fire at the thought that Flynn gets to go to an actual room with Lucy, while he and Rufus are expected to crash with the rest of the castle’s residents who don’t have their own quarters, who push aside the trestle tables and bed down in the dirty rushes of the great hall. “Look,” Wyatt says. “Can’t we just go back to the hotel? We paid extra for that room.”

When this is translated to him, Philip raises an elegant black eyebrow. “Leave my palace, you mean? No, I don’t see how that will be necessary. And since when does a manservant voice opinions on these things? I suggest more beating, to be frank.”

“So do I,” Flynn says with fervor, earning himself a dirty look from Lucy. “You are a wise and just man, Your Grace. A gentleman and a scholar.”

Philip gives the amused little smile of someone who sups on flattery daily, but is not above enjoying the taste. “That’s settled, then? Tomorrow, after Lauds. Good night.”

They echo it clumsily back to him, servants appear with the same well-trained speed, and Wyatt and Rufus are shown off to the hall (both glaring at Flynn, convinced – not without reason – that this is his fault) and Flynn and Lucy climb a set of tightly winding, narrow stone steps to a bedchamber on the next floor. At the sight of it, Flynn supposes that he doesn’t get to laugh too much at Wyatt and Rufus, unfortunately. The bed will fit Lucy nicely, but cut him off at about the knees, unless he curls up like a shrimp (and for that matter, if she wants him in it). Jesus. _Midgets._

“Well,” Lucy says, once they’ve shut the door. “That was a disaster, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose.” Flynn isn’t honestly sure what constitutes a disaster anymore. “If you mean that we know where Richard is now, but because we’re supposed to travel there and spy on him on Philip’s behalf. And he’s not an idiot, he’s not going to let us go alone. He’ll send men with us, likely including the captain. We’ll have to lose them before we can even think about whatever we need to do with Richard.”

“So Rittenhouse is here,” Lucy says. “Both in Paris, and in Poitiers with Richard. They have more than one agent, they have plenty of moving pieces. And there’s a strong possibility that we’re playing exactly into their trap by going at all, but – ”

“But we can’t not go,” Flynn finishes grimly. “For any number of reasons. So yes. I suppose it’s a disaster.”

Lucy considers this, then gives a firm little nod. “We’ll figure it out,” she says. “We always do. Lauds is going to come early. We should get some sleep.”

Flynn glances at her awkwardly, but Lucy doesn’t seem inclined to challenge their sleeping arrangements. So, after he shucks the dirty 1799 coat and shoes, and she strips off to her shift, they crawl into the bed. He hikes his feet up, grumbling under his breath. The mattress is stuffed with straw and goose feathers, not entirely uncomfortable, but still scratchy, and the pillow is not what you would call ample. Not that he’s suddenly going to kick up a fuss about less-than-luxury accommodations, but he’ll wind up with a permanent crick in his back if they have to spend too many nights like this. He finds himself actually looking forward to getting to Richard’s court, much of a clusterfuck as it is likely to be, for the sole reason that Richard, in keeping with his larger-than-life reputation, had a stature to match: he’s estimated to have stood six-foot-four or five. _His_ palace will be made with the comforts of a tall man in mind. About damn time.

Lucy drifts off quickly, though Flynn doesn’t, mind too busy with plans and possibilities and what the hell they’re going to do next – though he does steal a moment or two to watch her sleep. Besides, they’re very close to Notre Dame, and the fucking monks just have to punctiliously ring those bells, don’t they. He’s awoken once at midnight, again at three AM, and has given up all hope of getting back to sleep by the time the greyness is seeping into their room and it’s time to get up. But he must have dropped under enough not to notice when a servant came in and laid out new clothes for them. He reprimands himself for this carelessness – what if they had tried to do something else? Sloppy.

Nonetheless, there is nothing for it. Lucy has a new dress in blue, sleeves and neck trimmed in embroidery, a girdle and a fashionable bit of gauzy headwear that Flynn tells her is called a toque, a cloak with fox fur, and other garments more suitable for a respectable middle-class lady. As for Flynn, it’s clear that they have had to scramble, but they’ve come up with a tunic, braies, and boots, along with a green cloak that fastens over one shoulder with a bronze pin and makes him feel like a Viking. His toes cram against the end of the boots when he walks, and he’s tempted to keep his colonial shoes, but he might as well go for the look. The other ones are too small anyway. (This is a recurring problem in his life.)

Lucy eyes him approvingly once he’s changed, which makes Flynn think it was definitely worth it, and he offers his arm to escort her down the stairs, across the cool blue courtyard, and into the palace chapel, where the king and his household are hearing Lauds. Wyatt and Rufus are there already; they’ve managed to get some slightly nicer clothes as well, though there is still straw in Wyatt’s hair and he glares suspiciously at their arm-in-arm entrance. He gets glared at in return by Flynn, glances away, and reminds himself to deal with this later.

To his surprise, and to his grief, Flynn finds the service oddly comforting. It’s in Latin, which even he can’t really follow aside from a word here and there, but he’s been to enough High Church Catholic masses to know the drill, and it makes him think of the ones that Lorena took him to. They went to Italy on their honeymoon, there were tiny ancient churches everywhere, many of whom still offered services in the pre-Vatican II style. Flynn looks up at the light sifting through the diamonded window, and finds himself choking back tears. _Kyrie,_ he thinks. _Kyrie eleison._ Not for him – he’s given up on that a while ago – but for them. _In nominee Patri, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti._ Can see Lorena next to him in the pew, crossing herself as the crucifix passes, and laughing over coffee afterward over how much she hates the fusty patriarchal nonsense of the old guard. Her faith was always a contradiction, a struggle and a question, but she never relinquished it altogether. God, how he misses her.

Flynn is brought back to earth with a start when the service is over, and everyone begins to file out. Philip catches his eye over the household’s heads, and tips his own in a significant manner, so Flynn changes direction and follows him, Lucy perforce tagging along. Wyatt and Rufus troop over as well, as Philip leads them through the hall and into his private solar. It’s a combination living room/dining room/study, with large windows to admit sunlight (hence the name), tapestries on the walls to keep the chill out, and a table currently set with breakfast. Everyone is hungry enough that it looks very good, and once Philip has taken his seat, they do the same. They also have to wait until he starts to eat before they do, but fortunately that is not very long. Flynn asks, “Are we leaving today, my lord?”

“Yes.” Philip sips his breakfast wine. “I’ve arranged an escort to accompany you. The roads may be dangerous, after all, and if you insist on taking your wife along, surely we have a duty to see her safe. It will not be large, only a dozen men, and they will be under strict instructions not to be seen with you when you arrive in Poitiers. You are, after all, not to give Richard any indication as to where you hail from, or my role in this endeavor.”

Flynn starts to say something, then stops. While this saves them the hassle of having to lose their guards first, and also trying to find their way to Poitiers by themselves, which would clearly be a nightmare, “a dozen men” is still obviously a lot more than there are of them. Even he and Wyatt would have their work cut out for them trying to take on a dozen knights, if for any reason they should discover that to be necessary, and probably half of them are Rittenhouse or Rittenhouse-trained. After a pause, Flynn says, “And do you think Richard will be fooled by that?”

“You’d best hope he is, mustn’t you?” Philip gives him a mild look. “Or that you can offer him something he wishes to hear? It is _quite_ important that you do.”

“Meaning what?”

“I don’t see how I am obligated to share that information with my mercenary.” Philip shrugs, then smiles, raising his cup. “To your health. I daresay you will need it.”

Flynn daresays they will, and they finish breakfast in terse silence, Wyatt and Rufus not quite daring to glare at either Flynn or Philip one-on-one, but making it very clear that they would like to. Then they are shown out to the courtyard, where the dozen men (including the English-speaking captain, whose name is apparently Gerard) are waiting for them. Because they will be leaving the city and traveling on the roads, Flynn and Wyatt are allowed to carry swords. These are a lot heavier than they look, and while it’s impossible not to feel extremely cool when you belt one on like goddamn Aragorn from _Lord of the Rings,_ there is also the fact that they will be flailing like idiots if they actually try to fight with them. (Well, Wyatt will; Flynn feels confident he can learn on the fly, but he’s under no illusions as to who would win in a pitched fight.) Some of the men are also in chainmail shirts, but those weigh thirty pounds and you have to be trained to bear the weight, much less stand up, move around, and fight in them. Mounted knights are the Panzer brigades of their day, and if they are crashing toward you with a ten-foot-long lance on a heavy warhorse, then God have mercy on your soul. (Plate armor won’t come into vogue for about another century and a half, but they do just fine without it right now.)

The horse part, at least, Flynn is excited about. There are four: two knights’ coursers for him and Wyatt (Flynn can manage it, but that is going to be a lot of horse for Wyatt – normally a servant would have a much worse mount, but it seems that Philip prefers speed over societal observance, as well as possibly not believing that Wyatt is really a manservant). There’s a gentler palfrey for Lucy, suitable for a lady, and a common mule for Rufus, who eyes it with a _Really??!_ expression. Apparently they don’t feel the need to waste good French horseflesh on a black heathen, even if Rufus’s attendance at chapel this morning “proves” that he is not a Saracen. “Can we go to Spain yet?” he grumbles. “That sounds better.”

“No.” Flynn helps Lucy onto her horse (he knows they rode at least once, trying to catch up to him and Jesse James, but this is still not their forte), then steps lightly up into his stirrups, just to prove he can. He gathers up the reins and gets to know his mount a bit, cantering quick circles around the bailey, while Wyatt and _his_ mount are still having a difference of opinion over who is controlling who here. Much as it’s enjoyable to watch him suffer, Flynn sighs and supposes that once again, he is going to have to be helpful. “Be firm,” he advises. “It’s a warhorse, it’s been trained to be contrary. Needs a few hits with the reins.”

“Great,” Wyatt grumbles. “It’ll be just like riding you.”

Flynn gives him an arch look, as if inviting Wyatt to reflect on how that sounded, and Wyatt makes a faint choking noise which would be extremely enjoyable in other circumstances. Rufus divides a judgmental stare between them and gets onto his mule, which then, in true mulish fashion, refuses to go anywhere. It is finally coaxed to do so after a few solid kicks from Rufus, which Flynn approves of; at least someone’s getting the point. Once they have all managed to not fall off on their asses (or the trio has, at any rate), the portcullis is opened, they start to move, and canter down the bridge and toward the Paris streets.

It’s a fine, watery-pale morning, not quite None, and Flynn is almost able to enjoy the sensation of riding again, even as he keeps a very sharp eye on everything around them, the hustle of the morning commerce, and how Lucy is doing with the palfrey. He tries to guess how long this will take. It’s a little over two hundred miles southwest from Paris to Poitiers, a trip of barely two hours on a modern TGV, but that, obviously, is not the case here. A man riding hard can do thirty or forty miles in a day; a king’s procession can sometimes barely make ten. At the most optimistic end, it’ll be at least a week. But Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus will be in total agony if they ride that hard for that long, which even Flynn feels a little bad for.

There’s also the fact that the further they get away from Paris, the less use their French will be, and that was limited to start with. They just got by with Philip, but he speaks _langue d’o_ _ï_ _l,_ the northern French that becomes modern French. Richard himself also speaks that (though really, how to talk to him is the least of their problems right now), but the further south they go, the more it will turn into southern French, _langue d’oc_ or Occitan, which is considerably different from and not necessarily mutually intelligible with Old French. They’ll have their friendly and not-at-all-evil guides for most of the trip, but once they get to Poitiers, communication is going to be even _more_ of a pain. Flynn almost (almost) hopes the place is indeed crawling up the ass with Rittenhouse agents. At least they will speak English.

Flynn blows out a breath as they reach the city gates, and with the crowds and grime and churches and bridges and towers of Paris behind them, the world opens up into a sudden and almost shocking expanse of green ahead. Cities stop here in a way they don’t in the modern world, when they’re surrounded by rings and rings of suburbs and feeder communities and residential neighborhoods, until you finally transition into the countryside by means of a highway. There’s none of that here. There is Paris, and then there is no Paris, aside from a scattering of cottages. The road snakes off into the distance, a single, muddy track. It’s going to be a very long trip, in more ways than one.

Flynn considers it, and steals one more sidelong glance at Lucy. Then he puts his heels into his horse’s side, decides it’s not really worth it to look back now, and so, the wind in his face, he doesn’t.


	4. Chapter 4

The team is on the road for the next week. Which absolutely no one (aside from Flynn, because he’s crazy) enjoys, especially not Rufus. The mule is a pack animal, not really designed to keep up with horses, and Rufus spends a lot of time with everyone else’s dust blowing in his face. Sometimes Wyatt or Lucy will circle back around to see how he’s doing and keep him company, and otherwise commiserate about the situation; Wyatt and Rufus both walk as bow-legged as a pair of old cowboys when they dismount, though they desperately try to keep Flynn from seeing this. Rufus didn’t even know it was possible to be chafed everywhere that he is presently chafed, and waking up in the morning makes him want to die. There is sometimes enough of a town to have an inn, but crowding in with a bunch of strangers is almost worse than sleeping on the ground with a blanket. They’ve also stayed overnight at a few monasteries, which are apparently the Travelodge of the day, as they usually offer a simple bunk and a chance to eat with the monks at mealtimes. Religious duty to care for strangers and all that, which Rufus thinks is nice of them, even if he doesn’t believe in anything that they do. They do get stared at a lot, though. Flynn is huge, Rufus is black, Lucy is a woman, and Wyatt – well, he’s a white dude, he’s got that going for him, but he can’t speak or understand anything that anyone says to him. They’re practically Martians.

At least the scenery is nice, Rufus supposes. You know, if you’re into that sort of thing. It’s also extremely crucial that the weather cooperates, as rain or mud could wash out roads or flood rivers or otherwise delay them for days, but thus far (knock very hard on wood), it’s held out. That is, aside from a few afternoon squalls that leave your clothes pretty hard to dry when your only choice is to take them off and hang them over a branch. You don’t have any _other_ clothes to wear if you do this, so unless you want to found the very first French nudist club, you get used to being damp. Plus the food is some variant of hard bread, lumps of cheese, or small brown apples, or sometimes a bird that one of the soldiers shoots and roasts over a fire. Not that Rufus ever gets first dibs on one of those.

You’d think they might at least get some quality team bonding out of this (though _bonding_ is still an unlikely word for Rufus to imagine in any context with Flynn) but that is also difficult. For one thing, Flynn usually rides ahead, Rufus gets stuck behind, Lucy and Wyatt have varying degrees of success, and it’s hard to shout conversation back and forth at each other. When they stop for the night, there’s the obvious fact that they don’t know how many of the soldiers might be reporting to and/or in Rittenhouse, they’re fairly sure Gerard the captain is eavesdropping on them (nobody else has openly spoken English to them, but they have a tendency to turn their heads as if they’re listening) and they can’t exactly all sneak away from the camp every night without raising suspicion. Besides, they’re so tired that it’s hard to focus anyway. Thus, they haven’t really discussed the fact that they clearly left a sleeper agent behind in Paris to do whatever at Philip’s court, or what they’re going to do when they get to Richard’s. They stop when it’s dark, eat, sleep until dawn, then keep riding.

Rufus has begun to imagine that he actually did die without noticing, and this is in fact hell (hey, he’s just getting into the spirit of things) by the time, eight days later, they finally spot Poitiers on the horizon. It’s a very French hilltop city, built on the site of a Roman Gallic fortress and ringed by a formidable stone wall, with two river valleys forming a natural boundary line and defense on three sides. Their guides won’t go any further, are going to just hang back here and wait for them to reconnoiter, because as noted, it cannot be obvious that they’ve come from Philip. Which means it’s time to cut the team loose, by themselves, to get in there, figure out what the shit to do, and somehow not die. _Awesome._

Flynn stands in his stirrups to shade his eyes and peer up at the city, which rises steeply on the high bluffs. The weather has been nice for a few days, so they’ve had time to dry out a little, though in Rufus’s opinion, they still smell _pretty_ funky. (What’s the bath situation? Do people bathe? He seems to recall a lot of insisting that they don’t, but he’ll have to ask Flynn later, if only to make sure he doesn’t get crotch lice.) Maybe it’s true that you get used to it, as he doesn’t notice it quite as much as he did at the start. Progress! Woo.

As Flynn is looking for whatever he’s looking for, Wyatt rides up next to Rufus, and they exchange a sidelong glance. Wyatt has offered to trade the courser for a while, but after watching _that_ man-vs.-beast struggle, Rufus has decided to stick with the mule, thanks. “What do you think?” Wyatt says in a low voice. “Are we going with this?”

“We kind of have to, don’t we? We’re not going all the way back to Paris now.”

“Yeah, but… I’m not saying we leave him behind, but he’s way better equipped to move around than we are. Maybe he helps us identify the Rittenhouse guys here, we get a couple of them to show Philip that we held up our end of the deal, and Flynn takes them back to Paris. Maybe they die on the way, not his fault, and then he can keep on hunting for the mole in Philip’s court when he gets back. That way we don’t leave one sleeper agent totally unsupervised, and – ”

“Dude,” Rufus says. “You know I agree that it’s a bad idea to leave Rittenhouse with free rein in Paris, and that we have to find their agents here. But is this whole plan because you really care what Philip thinks about us, or because you don’t want Flynn near Lucy?”

Wyatt has the grace to flush. “I wasn’t really thinking about that,” he says, which is such a painfully obvious lie that Rufus wants to smack him. “But look – yeah, Flynn’s useful muscle, and all right, he’s the historian here, but I’m sure Lucy can – ”

“You are well aware I’m not his number one fan either,” Rufus interrupts. “But Lucy’s already said she doesn’t really know much about this, and if we send Flynn away and get stuck in some stupid avoidable situation, that’s on us. Besides, remember how well it went last time you pulled the whole throw-your-weight-around jealous boyfriend routine? Lucy’s a grown-ass woman. I like her, and I like you, but I’m not getting in the middle of whatever awkwardly-ex-lovers-or-otherwise thing you two have right now. Especially when, for once, I think Flynn’s right and we need to stick together. We’ll figure out what we’re doing with the Rittenhouse guys if we’re lucky enough to find them. Maybe you can just shoot them, or – stab them, or whatever period-appropriate killing we’re doing. Okay?”

Wyatt does not look entirely pleased with this answer, but he blows out a breath, glancing ahead at Lucy, who has ridden up next to Flynn and is talking to him in a low voice. After a pause, eyes still on them, he says, “Yep. Got it.”

Rufus has a bad feeling that that went in one ear and straight out the other, but fine, he’s said his piece. Philip’s men take their leave, and Gerard instructs them where to meet them when they’ve completed their work, of whatever sort. Then the team exchanges a well-this-is-it look, lifts their reins, and starts to canter along the river valley, toward the gates of the city. Rufus can spot the banners on the gatehouse, the same as the ones over the castle in Rouen: red, with two golden animals that look either like lions or leopards (they’re supposed to be lions, though). Poitiers is a lot smaller than Paris: just an encircled hilltop, with a couple cathedral spires rising above crowded, shingled roofs. You could probably walk around the entire place in an hour, so word is going to spread like wildfire about these weird strangers. It’s not clear if this will help their mission or not.

Rufus pastes on a smile, though he’s not sure that isn’t creepier, as they reach the gatehouse and start the first run-through of their new hit Broadway performance, “Can We Talk To These People? Because I Think The Answer’s No.” The guy speaks something that is apparently not exactly French and sounds like Spanish in places, but not enough Spanish for Flynn and Wyatt to understand, or vice versa. They end up resorting to sign language. They have to pay a toll, again, because of the whole not-being-citizens thing (see, Rufus is starting to learn how this works). At least they have real money this time, rather than shoe buckles, and that makes things somewhat easier. It’s not clear if the gatehouse dude thinks these are the kind of people he should be letting into town, and if your head can possibly end up on a literal spike for bad HR decisions, you have to feel for him. Rufus waves at him in a friendly fashion as they ride through. Yeah, that probably didn’t help.

Inside, the streets are steep, narrow, and fronted with half-timbered buildings, roofs leaning together so sharply overhead as to almost block out the sun. The smell in some of the poorer, darker lanes is ripe, and the horses slip a little in the thick mud as they climb. Then they emerge in a broad market square, a church of suitably churchlike appearance (come on, Rufus is not the expert here) keeping watch over various stalls and shops, and a small castle set just down the way in its own walled precinct. The city continues down the hill on the other side, and the major cathedral tower is somewhere off to the right. Rufus tries to orient himself – he normally has a good sense of direction – but those mazelike streets have pretty much shot that. If they spend any amount of time here, he’ll probably pick it up, but still. He pilots time machines for a living, and he thinks that was complicated.

They are already attracting their usual quota of stares before they’ve even come to a full stop, which is… well, if they got the king’s attention within the day in a city the size of Paris (though someone was probably ordered to be on the lookout for them), it feels like one of Richard’s dudes should be running up before Rufus finishes thinking this sentence. For his part, he wants to get away from the jackass (not even meaning you-know-who, for a change) and scrub some of the nooks and crannies. He leans forward. “Hey, Flynn. Do people wash around here? I mean, like full immersion? Because while our stench has been a great traveling companion, I think it’s time we got rid of it.”

“There will be a public bathhouse somewhere,” Flynn says. “Most cities have one, especially old Roman cities. As outsiders, however, we may not have the right to use it. Or we could just strip and wash in the river.”

“Yeah, no, I vote bath. They’ve got to let us use it if we pay, don’t they?” It can’t be any more awkward than eighth-grade locker room, and Rufus is willing to cough up a temporary fee for Medieval Club Med if that’s what it takes (though he figures they might as well spend their money while they have it – it’s not like they can take it home, though they might be able to sell it to some university or museum numismatics department). “I’m pretty sure Richard isn’t going to be _super_ impressed by a lot of dirty hobos turning up and insisting they totally know some important information, pinky swear bro. Just saying.”

A muscle in Flynn’s cheek twitches as if he’s trying not to laugh, but he assents to this idea more or less graciously. They make their way through the marketplace and down the far hill. There are several old Roman aqueducts built on this end of the city, and women with pottery jugs are siphoning it off for their washing and cooking. Here, as Flynn was apparently guessing, they find the bathhouse, a small stone structure built over an underground spring. Rufus wonders if they can just tie up the horses and roll inside, but of course it is not that easy. Nobody’s going to jack their rides, since they’d get hanged, but the guy who comes out is definitely not impressed with them. (No matter the century, French customer service always sucks, apparently.) They manage to work out that there are designated days for non-citizens to use the baths, this is not one of those days, and they should clear out. Flynn finally changes his mind with some of the silver pennies, but even with that done, the man points at Lucy and shakes his head vigorously. Obviously, they are not going to be so scandalous as to bathe _together._ She can go around to the other one at the back.

Finally, after the most hassle Rufus has ever gone through in his life to take a goddamn shower, Lucy vanishes to the private one, and the boys troop inside the bathhouse. The air is damp and steamy, the ceiling is low, and the baths are cut into the rock and fed by a wooden pipe, a cistern, and a small iron brazier. Sticks of kindling are stacked next to it: evidently, if you want hot water, you stoke the fire yourself, you lazy fuck (or since they’re here at off hours, it’s not preheated, but either way, annoying). It seems like it’s warm already, and Rufus is not spending another half an hour at this. He, Flynn, and Wyatt shuck their clothes and pile in like little boys racing into the ocean on school holidays.

At that, Rufus discovers his mistake and sputters. It’s not _freezing,_ but it’s far from the usual balmy temperatures at which he’d wash, and he’s practically tempted to swim over and stack some of that kindling in the dumb brazier himself. Flynn is doing that “in Soviet Russia, cold baths take YOU” face which means you’re not gonna catch _his_ hardy Eastern European genes complaining about the temperature, and Wyatt is obviously not saying a word if Flynn isn’t. Rufus permits himself a small sigh and forces his head under, which helps a bit. Then he finds a handful of some slimy greyish stuff on the edge, and makes a face. “Is this soap?”

“Probably,” Flynn says. “Lye, potash, animal fat, and maybe olive oil? I wouldn’t get that in your eyes, if I were you. Or anywhere else you don’t want to _really_ sting.”

Rufus, who did not need the reminder that plenty of other parts of him are still extremely raw, grimaces and backs away slowly. He uses it in sparing amounts (it will definitely take your skin off, if you’re not careful) and as he’s coming up from a rinse, decides that he has definitely not noticed the looks that Wyatt and Flynn are being very careful not to get caught giving each other. Oh God, is this a literal dick-measuring contest now? Surreptitiously judging who is better equipped to please Lucy? Frankly, Rufus isn’t altogether sure that they shouldn’t all just bone. Seems like it might put them in a better mood. (He, however, is clearly not going to say this either.)

Finally, once they have mostly reduced the stink (or at least don’t want to risk burning anything off), they rinse and climb out. There are not really towels, so it’s drip-drying _au naturel,_ which is one of the awkwarder experiences of Rufus Carlin’s recent life. (The key is to avoid eye contact.) Once they’re the approximately same degree of dry as their clothes, which they hung up in the steam and which are thus uncomfortably woolly and sticky when they put them on, they troop out and wait for Lucy. Of course she looks practically fresh as a daisy when she swans out, probably having had a nice, open-air, sun-heated, and blessedly free of naked coworkers wash in the spare tub. (No Peeping Thomases, hopefully.)

Lucy glances at them, evidently decides not to ask how their bathing experience went, and they go around the front to retrieve their horses. Some dude has unsaddled them, brushed them, and saddled them again, which Rufus thinks was nice of him until it becomes clear that he also wants to be paid for the service. Apparently, throwing cash around to fix their problems is also going to be word that travels fast – fleecing clueless rich tourists is apparently another very old profession, and they have been visited by the medieval squeegee guy. Flynn growlingly gives him a penny and when the guy seems set to insist on more, backhands him into the mud. This is apparently a valid method of problem-solving around here, because he gets up, bows, and runs away.

“That why you like this time so much?” Rufus comments. “Because you can just play Whack-a-Serf and nobody’s likely to give that much of a shit about it?”

Flynn shrugs, with his usual magnificent unconcern for societal niceties (or you know, general sanity). “Let’s go.”

With that, they climb back up on the damn horses (and mule) again, which aches even more than usual. Rufus honestly doesn’t care what Rittenhouse is doing here, hopes it is nice and time-consuming, if it means he doesn’t have to do this again for at least forever. He’s also thinking that a late lunch would be nice; there were plenty of appetizing-smelling things in the market, and their predawn bread and cheese with Gerard and the gang is a very long way off. If there’s anything that this adventure has taught them, it’s that everything seems a lot more manageable when you’re fed, and the difficulty of obtaining food when you either have to grow it, bake it, butcher it, or barter for it yourself is constantly on everyone’s mind. No wonder people spend so much time around here doing that. Otherwise, you die. Too much rain, or not enough, and crops don’t grow? Famine. You die. Your fields get burned because some local bigwigs are at war? You (probably) die. It’s literally a tough row to hoe.

They ride back up toward the market, as Rufus opens his mouth to suggest the lunch plan. Just as he is about to, however, there’s a sound of trumpets, and guys on fancy horses, wearing red-and-gold tabards (Rufus thinks that’s the word for the sleeveless tunic that goes over the chainmail) come galloping through the crowd, with the arrogance that comes from never having to look where you are going. You know everyone will just get out of the way anyway, or wish they did. They’re shouting something that is clearly “Make way for important so-and-so,” and Rufus glances sharply at the others, wondering if Richard is just going to swag in with his posse and make this easier for them. They’re shoved back against a mud-brick wall with the other people moving to clear a path through the busy square, as several more similarly-dressed dudes appear and get their money’s worth with the trumpets. Then a covered litter of some sort (Rufus thinks the word is palanquin) appears. It’s mounted on two horses and allows a striking older woman to sit regally on a silk-draped chair and wave to the crowds with the practiced ease of royalty everywhere. Julie Andrews, is that you?

The woman is definitely not young – her hair is mostly white, with a few deep copper streaks left, elegantly upswept, covered with a fashionable wisp of gauze, and pinned with a jeweled band – but she is beautiful by the standards of any era. She has high cheekbones, hazel-gold eyes, lips painted in a dark berry color, and a dress in matching burgundy velvet, draped with an ermine-trimmed mantle. Gems glitter on her elegant hands as she waves, and among the ordinary masses in their plain greens and greys and browns, in rough homespun and shabby hoods, her wealth and glamour seems almost out of another planet. In fact, she briefly reminds Rufus of Hedy Lamarr, and he’s as guilty as anyone of staring at her as she goes by. And if you thought this was going to be a Marie Antoinette situation, the people clearly love her. _“La reine Ali_ _é_ _nor!”_ they’re shouting. _“La reine Ali_ _é_ _nor! La patz de Dieu, ma_ _dòna! Teu santat, teu santat!”_

There’s no chance of going anywhere while the procession files toward the castle, and they have to wait while it clears. Rufus then turns to ask who that was, before spotting the absolutely moony-eyed, starstruck look on Lucy’s face that means it was some amazing historical lady she would probably ditch Wyatt _and_ Flynn to marry in a heartbeat. (Definite upgrade, in Rufus’s opinion.) “Well?” he says with a slight grin, since they can all see that Lucy is internally dying. “What should we definitely appreciate?”

“Everything. Oh God.” Lucy is practically swooning in her saddle. “That – that was Eleanor of Aquitaine, she’s _only_ one of the most beautiful, powerful, and influential women of the entire Middle Ages. She was the richest heiress in Europe, she was married twice to two kings, Louis VII of France and Henry II of England, and outlived them both. She went on crusade with Louis and she planned rebellions against Henry, she was – she is – absolutely fearless and brash and intelligent and educated and stubborn as hell. She encourages her sons by Henry to rebel against him and gets locked up in prison for sixteen years, but when Richard becomes king, he lets her out, and she rules as regent while he’s gone on crusade. When he was captured on the return, she raised his ransom and traveled with it to Germany at the age of seventy-two, last year, to get him out, and outwits all the political maneuvers by his enemies trying to keep him captive. She outlives Richard as well and stays the queen mother into her youngest son John’s reign. She dies – nine years from now? In 1204 – at the age of eighty-two, and she is one of the most formidable players in the game right until the end. She’s rumored to have had all kinds of lovers, she lives life exactly how she wants, she takes no shit from anyone ever, she’s this beautiful, scandalous, shocking woman, she’s – she’s _incredible._ She’s just – she’s _amazing.”_

Rufus and Wyatt look at each other and grin, even as Rufus spots a look of soft-eyed adoration on Flynn’s face, at the sight of Lucy spiraling over one of the women from his favorite period of history, that it’s probably a good thing Wyatt doesn’t. “Wait, though,” Rufus says. “Just to be clear. Eleanor is Richard’s mother?”

“Yes,” Lucy confirms. “They’re very close, he’s her favorite son, and she’s the effective queen throughout his reign, not his wife. He trusts her with all the major decisions and business, so if Rittenhouse did want him to remarry, there’s no way he’d do it without consulting her. The fact that she’s here – that might mean that he’s asked her to come and give her opinion on it. As well – ” Lucy stops, then goes rather pale, turning to Flynn. “Eleanor supports John as king after Richard dies, doesn’t she? What if Rittenhouse kills her here, especially if she doesn’t agree to whatever remarriage idea is on the table? That makes it a hell of a lot easier to get in whoever they want instead.”

“His beloved mother dying would be a terrible shock for Richard,” Flynn agrees after a moment, frowning. “Especially if Rittenhouse framed French agents as responsible, as they would be certain to do. Make him launch an all-out war against Philip, lead him on a path away from being randomly shot at a no-account castle in spring 1199. He’s only forty-one when he dies, he could live a lot longer, and thus if so, again, John won’t be king. It would be all kinds of useful for them, no doubt. We should see if we can get into the palace.”

They ride down the lane toward said palace, or the _Palais des comtes,_ as it will come to be known. According to Lucy, it is the seat of the dukes of Aquitaine, where Eleanor was born in 1122; she married Henry II in the cathedral here in 1152, and largely resides here as well, so this is her old and long-time hometown and that’s why they love her so much. Flynn gives her a slightly teasing look as if to ask if she wants the historian job back, and Lucy says that she took a course on the Plantagenets in undergrad and wrote a paper about Eleanor. Outside that, she’s still mostly lost.

Eleanor’s train has just finished filing into the courtyard, and the gates are mostly shut. The team arrives just in time to interrupt this process, but the guards shout what are plainly orders for them to GTFO, just like back in Rouen. Flynn, however, has decided to be stubborn about this, and when Flynn is stubborn about things, well. (You know, there are times when Rufus thinks he’s almost starting to like the crazy bastard. It’s bizarre and unsettling.) He pesters and badgers and cajoles until he finally gets them to fetch someone who speaks whatever French that Philip spoke in Paris, the kind that he and Lucy could apparently mostly understand. Rufus, of course, can’t understand a single solitary thing, so the nuances of the exchange are totally lost on him, but Lucy says that Flynn is telling them that there is a threat to the queen’s safety. Which Rufus hopes would get their attention, yes, but it’s less certain that they’re then about to let four idiots off the street in to deal with it.

The guards remain skeptical, but when Flynn just won’t give it up (which is, in this situation, a positive quality), they are finally allowed to proceed into the courtyard, watched like a hawk from all sides. Rufus feels that his bath idea was smart, since they look at least somewhat respectable, and the guard goes to get his boss, who returns and speaks to Flynn for several moments. Flynn points at Rufus, which Rufus finds alarming. At last, however, their horses are taken off, and they are escorted into the hall and told (presumably) to wait. Late afternoon sunlight stripes gold on the flagstone floor, and Lucy is nervously fixing her damp hair, presumably to ensure that she does not look like a slob if she suddenly meets Eleanor of Aquitaine. Rufus, for his part, wheels on Flynn. “What did you say to them?”

“Relax.” Flynn raises a hand. “I told them that you were a friend of Saif al-Din’s.”

“And who is exactly is Saif al-Din?”

“Richard’s opposite number on the Third Crusade, the conqueror of Jerusalem and leader of the Muslim army, was Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria. Saif al-Din is his brother.”

“Still not following,” Rufus says. “Because it sounds like turning up and claiming to a super Christian crusader king that I’m a pal of his heathen mortal enemy’s brother is a really _bad_ idea, actually.”

Flynn grins. “Oh, that’s the thing. They’re not really mortal enemies. Richard and Saladin never meet in person, though Richard defeats him several times in battle, but they have an admiring and respectful relationship, say many nice things about each other, and believe that the other is a truly worthy opponent. Richard and Saif al-Din, however, do meet, as Saif al-Din is serving as an envoy for his brother. Of all the unlikely things, they hit it off very well, and Richard famously calls him ‘my brother and my friend.’ He even planned to marry his sister Joanna to Saif al-Din at one point, though it may have been a diplomatic bluff. Anyway. If you’re a friend of a friend, and that friend is one who indirectly saved his life several times on crusade, Richard might listen to you.”

“Oh.” Rufus is impressed, despite himself. “That’s – that’s kind of cool, I guess. So, like, if he asks me a question about how Saif al-Din’s doing, I should just say fine?”

“I’ll finesse that for you if it arises,” Flynn promises. “That, or – ”

Whatever he’s going to say, however, is cut off as the hall doors are flung open with a bang, and someone comes striding in like a house afire. If they were waiting for something like Philip’s subtle, reserved entrance, this is the exact opposite of that. The first thing that Rufus notices is that the dude is hella tall – the same height as Flynn, or maybe even a little taller – and given that the average size of everyone around here is, well, not that, it’s even more striking. He has shoulder-length red-gold hair and a short red beard, ice-blue eyes, and it’s clear that no one is kicking him out of the tiny bed for eating crackers. Having seen his mom earlier, Rufus isn’t surprised that Richard (as it has to be) is hot, but it’s _hot_ in another way too, like physical heat bordering on burning, standing too close to an open bonfire and having the instinctive urge to take a step back. Due to the people he hangs around with, Rufus can tell when someone is the kind of guy who could just waste you without breaking a sweat, and Richard is that guy. On the ride down, Wyatt told Rufus a little about Richard’s military exploits – he’s the best warrior and battle commander in Europe, basically, and has been since his teens. He has pulled victories out of wildly improbable situations, just seems to be playing on a whole other level than everyone else, and nobody who meets him, looking like _this_ among the small, grubby mortals of the twelfth century, ever forgets the experience.

There’s a communal startled silence as the team tries to process this. Even Flynn looks a little thrown. Then he clears his throat and starts forward. “Your Grace,” he says; Rufus can understand that much. The next part is something about “please excuse the interruption,” or at least that is what Rufus would guess. He then gestures at Rufus and says something else, which Rufus really hopes is not supposed to be a cue for his contribution. But Flynn beckons again, and Richard is staring at him with one auburn eyebrow cocked as high as it will go. 

Slowly, Rufus steps forward. “Hi,” he says, stammering slightly. “I’m, uh. I’m Prince Ali Ababwa, from Agrabah. I’m a friend of Saif al-Din’s?”

Flynn is the one to stare at him judgmentally this time, but turns to Richard and translates this, while Rufus attempts to stand there and look like he is in fact a friend of Saif al-Din. (He did get the song stuck in his head, but that is definitely his own fault.) Finally Richard whirls on his heel and demands something of Flynn, who answers carefully. If nothing else, it must be nice for him to not have to crane down to look someone in the eye. He and Richard are on the level, in more ways than one. After a pause, Richard turns to the rest of them and (again, presumably) asks if they are from “Agrabah” as well.

Flynn introduces them, leaving everyone to guess what insulting thing he called Wyatt this time, and Richard considers. Then he jerks up a hand, ordering them to follow him, and spins back around the same way he came. There is nothing of Philip’s cool reserve or discreet, barbed comments. Richard moves too fast and speaks too frankly, has very little interest in nonsense or anything that does not directly benefit him, and may already be playing three-dimensional chess on them. Rufus just gets the feeling they’re already outmatched.

After a few moments, they reach another set of doors, which Richard pushes open in turn, and step into a smaller solar beyond. Lucy emits a choked squeak and probably nearly faints as they all catch sight of Eleanor of Aquitaine seated regally in a chair by the window, sipping a cup of wine and probably freshening up from the trip before dinner. At the sight of Prince Ali, Jafar, Jasmine, and Abu, she jumps to her feet and demands something of her son. He answers in a low voice, then points at Flynn and Rufus.

This is incredibly disorienting when you still don’t understand anything that’s been said, and Rufus hopes that nobody is expecting him to speak in Arabic, which will definitely blow a hole in what is a shabby ruse to start with. Eleanor is eyeing him coolly, so he quickly bows. She gives him a very critical look, then offers her hand to Flynn, who kisses it. Rufus does the same when she offers it to him, since that seems to be the thing to do. Hopefully they don’t think he has cooties. Richard doesn’t seem to, at any rate.

It takes a while, but they finally establish that there are possibly some people in the court – the same people who may have been proposing Bad Things – that may wish Eleanor ill. There is then the obvious problem that they can’t exactly pose as any more trustworthy confidantes themselves, aside from insisting that they definitely know Saif al-Din. (Good thing phones aren’t a thing, as this story could be blown up in the modern world with one text message.) Finally, Richard says something curtly and makes a gesture clearly indicating that they are dismissed, and Rufus winces. “Um, does that mean – ”

Richard glances at him with an eyebrow raised, as he clearly can tell that’s not Arabic, and it probably sounds just familiar enough to catch his attention. Then he pauses and glances back at Flynn, adding something in a warmer tone and waving a hand. Rufus might be mistaken – but when Richard flashes a dazzling smile and winks, Flynn looks back at him and does that lip-lick thing of his, and both Wyatt and Lucy draw in their breath at once, Rufus doesn’t think he is. Hold on. Did Richard the Lionheart just hit on Flynn? _Flynn?_

It turns out that they have been invited to dinner to discuss this later, and as they are shown out (Lucy with one more worshipful look over her shoulder at Eleanor as the door’s closed behind them) Rufus can’t hold back. “Wait a second. Did he just – ?”

Flynn shrugs with a slightly infuriating smirk on his face, as if to say that’s for him to know and everyone else to find out. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Wait,” Wyatt says, arriving belatedly at the party. “Hold on, Richard – aren’t we here because he’s married, but estranged from his wife? Rittenhouse is trying to make him remarry so he has a son, his brother John doesn’t become king, and Magna Carta doesn’t happen, right? Or at least we think they are?”

“Correct.” Flynn raises his hands and claps exactly once. “What’s your point?”

“So back there, what just – ”

Flynn glances around, as gossiping in corridors about the king’s sex life is probably a no-no regardless of what language you’re doing it in. They walk out toward the castle gardens, find a bench, and sit. Then Flynn says, “The reason Richard tries to reconcile with his wife this year – or would have, before Rittenhouse changed it – is because he was rebuked for sodomy. He ignored it at first, then fell very sick, panicked, and decides to do it. It’s not the first time this has happened, either. But if they stopped the rebuke from happening, then he’s been engaging in his – shall we say – bad habits fairly openly since his return from crusade.”

There’s a boggled pause. Then Wyatt says, “So – so wait. Richard’s gay?”

“Do gay people even exist right now?” Rufus wants to know. “Not being burned, that is?”

“They don’t burn gay people,” Flynn says impatiently. “There’s a fairly open gay scene in Paris right now. Some killjoy named Peter the Chanter writes a whole tract on it, it increasingly becomes condemned as a mortal sin, but yes. The twelfth century is fairly laissez-faire, or it was, about this. But Richard was the leader of a very Christian crusade and a king, he had to repent, he had to make a public show of abjuring it. He does this at least three times during his reign. But behind closed doors, it is a different story.”

“How is remarrying going to solve that problem?” Wyatt asks. “I mean, if he’s still, you know, batting for the same team, he’s not going to have a kid anyway, right?”

“Personal preferences don’t matter,” Flynn says. “From what I can tell, he was most likely bisexual. He had an illegitimate son at one point. But he needs an heir, he’s king, he had sex with his wife regardless of what he felt about anything. She’s probably barren. In any event, if he remarries, then he at least has a chance of having a legitimate son.”

“But – ” Wyatt still seems put out. “Why would he hit on you?”

“What, as opposed to hitting on you?” Flynn’s smirk broadens. “Because he has taste?”

Wyatt opens his mouth very wide, keeps it that way, then turns to Rufus with a mutely appealing expression. Rufus shakes his head. “Sorry, buddy. He burned you down with that one.”

Wyatt scoffs, glances oddly sidelong at Lucy, and finally manages to shut his mouth. For her part, Lucy seems to be amused by this (or perhaps still too dazzled by Eleanor to pay much attention). Rufus supposes it might be useful if Richard has some reason to not want to kill them later, even if he really does not want any of the associating mental images. This is, if nothing else, proving to be juicier than anticipated.

“Fine,” Rufus says at last. “So dinner’s what, in a few hours? We probably don’t get to just ramble around the castle like perverts until then, so what are we supposed to do?”

“He said I was welcome to stop by the training yard. Which frankly, you and I should do.” Flynn glances at Wyatt. “Never hurts to get in some proper practice with the swords.”

Wyatt groans. “Do we have to do that now? I’m already sore.”

“Or I can go by myself.” Flynn gets to his feet. “I’ll be sure to tell him why you’re not there.”

At that, Wyatt discovers he’s not actually that sore after all, and practically races after Flynn. Lucy and Rufus exchange a look. “I’ll supervise them,” Lucy says wryly. “Do you want to come along?”

“I’m sure it’ll be very entertaining,” Rufus says. “But honestly, I might just find some out-of-the-way corner and take a nap. There has to be something.”

“Okay,” Lucy says. “See you at dinner?”

“Yeah.” Rufus waves her and the boys off, hopes they don’t kill each other accidentally or otherwise, and then yawns so widely that his jaw cracks. After a week sleeping on monastery bunks, the ground, crammed inn beds, or whatever else, he is not going to be picky about his nap arrangements; anything flat, reasonably soft, and not liable to get him stepped on will do. He crosses to the far side of the gardens, opens a door in the wall, and goes inside.

He heads up the narrow, twisting stairs, which is terrifying since they are very steep and there is no handrail, and crawls out on the next floor. There is a corridor here which he heads down, attempting to look like he definitely belongs here, and then he spots someone at the other end. A woman wearing an elegant emerald-green dress, red hair done in an elaborate braided crown. She is moving away from the window as if she was just standing there looking down at them, and possibly listening to their conversation. And then, as she turns –

Oh shit, Rufus thinks. Oh shit.

Emma.


	5. Chapter 5

The training yard is a square of roped-off mud, about twenty feet by twenty, decidedly at odds with what Wyatt was expecting. To be fair, he doesn’t know what he _was_ expecting (motto of the entire trip, and frankly his damn life in general) – the fancy grandstands from _A Knight’s Tale,_ complete with blasting Queen songs? No, probably not. There’s a weathered scarecrow thing with a padded crossbeam, which Flynn says is called a quintain. When Wyatt skeptically asks if they’re supposed to be hitting it, Flynn informs him that he’s welcome to. It’s jousting practice, actually. For twelve-year-olds.

“Jousting?” Wyatt repeats. “That'sthe thing where they ride at each other with lances, right? Big tournament, fair maidens, whatever? That doesn’t sound _that_ hard.”

Flynn carefully does not look over his shoulder at the fair maiden sitting on the steps of the bailey and watching them both, but Wyatt still senses the way his head wants to turn. Then he says, “Yes, something like that. But they aren’t quite the lavish chivalric spectacle that they turn into in the thirteenth century and on. They’re war games, training for real battle, and you’d be smeared into a pulp if you went against a squire, let alone a knight. They’re also a public attraction – Richard just licensed them to be imported into England for the first time last year, in order to raise revenue. Popular sporting events.”

Wyatt blinks. “So, _Sunday Night Jousting,_ then? Something like that?”

“Yes. They have football too, actually, though not in any way you’d recognize it. The teams are entire villages, the games can go on for days, and there are definitely no rules.” Flynn pulls his sword out of its sheath, tests the edge with a thumb, and licks the small cut. “Right, we can’t train with these. I’d kill you. And that would be very enjoyable, believe me, but right now, it would also be a bigger problem.”

“You’re a riot.” Wyatt does not want to admit it, but he is somewhat relieved that Flynn and bladed weapons are not going to be paired against him. “So what?”

Flynn nods to the rack of blunt-edged practice swords. But as Wyatt starts toward them, Flynn says, “No, not that one. Take a wooden one.”

“Let me guess,” Wyatt snaps. “Because that’s the one for kids?”

“Well, it is.” Flynn’s voice is still level, but there’s a sharp anger underneath. “But maybe if you stopped being an arrogant ass for two seconds, realized that you don’t know this world or how to fight in it, and if we’re going to keep Lucy and Rufus safe, you might want to learn. Now what’s more important to you? That, or your pride?”

Wyatt stops short, cheeks flaming. There’s an awkward silence, he resists looking around to see if Lucy heard that, and then finally, nods once. Bends stiffly and gets out a wooden sword, which is heavier than it looks, tapered and fullered to match the weight and heft of a real one. “Okay, fine,” he says. “Are you going to teach me, or just snark?”

“Do you want to be taught?”

“How the hell do you know how to swordfight?”

“I’ve picked up a few techniques here and there,” Flynn says. “The first war I ever fought in, we barely had any guns. And I’ve been in my share of guerrilla campaigns where the best weapons we had were knives. It’s not quite the same thing, but I can adapt.”

Wyatt pauses. Then he nods again and lifts the sword, as Flynn goes over to get a practice one for himself – made out of metal, but without an edge. The first lesson is how to hold it, which is apparently not self-explanatory. Flynn spends ten minutes critiquing Wyatt’s grip, before he moves on to critiquing Wyatt’s footwork. It would probably be similar to fencing, if Wyatt had ever done that (he’s not a rich prep school twit, obviously he has never done fencing) but the technique is entirely different. Fencing is all about control, about grace and skill and poise, elegantly striking blows in targeted spots, with a lightweight rapier that doesn’t have an edge. Maybe if they were still in the eighteenth century and Wyatt was going to have to pull a sword-cane and duel a cravat-wearing rogue in a back alley, that style might be applicable. Here, however, it’s not. This is (or will be) a heavy broadsword. You are not trying to tap your enemy to score aesthetic points, you are trying to kill him, while also preventing him from killing you. You have to be conscious of where you are leaving yourself open for him to get in over or under your guard, how to deflect his attack and turn it back on him, and what parts of you will or will not be protected while you’re doing this. Some knights fight with a shield, but Flynn thinks they need to get the sword down before they try adding that. Likewise, if this was going to be accurate, Wyatt should be wearing a thirty-pound chainmail hauberk. Try jumping and skipping around in _that_ thing. You’ll be winded (and dead) in five minutes.

It only takes about twenty minutes of this, not having gotten anywhere close to an actual sparring match, for Wyatt to begrudgingly realize that Flynn’s plan for them to start at the bottom was a good one. He’s trained Delta Force, he’s not exactly coming at this from scratch, but it’s an entirely different range and focus and engagement with your enemy when you can’t just point a high-powered automatic rifle at them from however many yards away. Wyatt is also realizing that Flynn was not exaggerating at all when he said that real knights would wax the floor with them. These guys are stronger and tougher and better-trained than 99% of modern men, don’t have any of their coddled comforts, and the sword is only one of the weapons they can use. There are also longbows, crossbows, lances, axes, morningstars (the club with a spiky-ass ball on the end), daggers, and God knows what else. Basically, Wyatt thinks, the rule is simple. Do not fight a knight. You will get fucked up, and die.

He's valiantly reminding himself not to check for Lucy’s reaction every two minutes, especially since it’s probably better if she’s not paying close attention to his humiliation, when there’s a stir at the courtyard entrance, and the next second, Richard blows in like a hurricane. Wyatt’s getting the distinct sense that this guy never just _walks_ anywhere. He always has to enter as dramatically and dominantly as possible (has that in common with Flynn, really) and expects to be the absolute center of attention when he does. Flynn breaks off from their lesson at once and turns to incline his head, so Wyatt does the same, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lucy scramble to her feet. Gotta make sure you look sharp when the big boss strolls into the room, after all.

Richard comes to a halt and eyes them appraisingly, as if he’s pleased that they took his advice to hit the gym. He and Flynn exchange a jocular few words which Wyatt, yet again, can’t understand (this is really getting old – do they have a crash course or whatever? Because he’d take it). Then Richard raises an eyebrow at them in an expectant fashion, nods at Wyatt’s wooden sword, and asks Flynn something else. Flynn answers with a succinct few words that, Wyatt has no doubt, are casting all kinds of shade on his sword-related abilities, then turns to him and switches back to English. “He wants to know if we’ll give him a demonstration. Wants to see how we do.”

“What, so you have the chance to beat me up in front of Richard?” Wyatt is at least under no illusions about how _that_ would go. “Look, man, you’re right. I suck at this, okay? You don’t need to keep rubbing it in.”

“King’s orders.” Flynn looks at him goadingly. “And the one thing Richard hates the most, on any side and any stripe, is cowards.”

Wyatt grits his teeth and swears inventively. Mostly under his breath, but he does as ordered. Backs up ten paces from Flynn, as Lucy gets to her feet and takes a few steps closer. It’s not clear whether she thinks she has a shot at stopping this, or she’s preparing to administer emergency medical intervention once it inevitably goes horribly wrong. At least without edges on the swords, they can’t do each other too much damage, but being whacked at full force over the head with a heavy blunt object is never exactly therapy. Lucy does her cute little awkward curtsy to Richard, who nods back regally, but it’s clear where his attention lies. Flynn raises his sword into a loose guard, and Wyatt does the same. They eye each other up and down. Then, on Richard’s command, they charge.

The only thought Wyatt has time for is that it is, in fact, _really_ a good thing he’s not doing this while riding a horse, wearing a shit-ton of armor, and trying to control a ten-foot-long stick with a piece of very sharp iron on the end, and he will definitely apologize to any jouster he meets for dissing them. The next second, there’s no time for thinking at all. It becomes clear at once that yes, Flynn was setting it on beginner level for him (and Wyatt doesn’t honestly think that he should have acquired years and years of hard-won competence in one brief lesson, but still). Flynn himself isn’t a world-level expert, maybe, but that doesn’t matter. In fact, Wyatt realizes after about two excruciating minutes that Flynn is still pulling his punches, just a bit. Maybe to make this take longer, since he can’t keep hitting Wyatt at his leisure if it’s all over in an instant, or maybe (much as Wyatt disbelieves the possibility) not to _completely_ destroy him in front of Richard. Flynn has even tilted his head once or twice, or hissed at him through his teeth, as if to hint to him where to hit or how to move. Wyatt sometimes gets these clues, and sometimes doesn’t. Mostly the latter.

The end result is that after about five minutes, Wyatt pretty sure he will have more bruises than skin tomorrow, and well aware that Flynn allowed him to get in the counterattacks that he did, he is smartly disarmed by Flynn and his sword goes flying. Oh God, and Lucy’s standing right there, because this just needed to get worse. Wyatt raises his hands. “Yield,” he growls. “That’s what you say, right?”

“Yes.” Flynn looks extremely smug. Of course he fucking does. Then he turns to Richard, who has been watching with an extremely critical air, and remarks something in a tone that does not need much translation, though Flynn provides it anyway. “He says that I’m bad and you’re terrible, and he really hopes we didn’t come here intending to be soldiers.”

That rocks Wyatt, given that he and Flynn _are_ soldiers, and by the standards of their own time, pretty damn good ones. He wipes the sweat off his brow and realizes that an audience of about a dozen castle retainers and servants and so on have trickled in while the fight was going on; the king rarely goes anywhere by himself, after all. Great, more witnesses. He finds himself actually hoping that Flynn told Richard that he was in fact a manservant, so his general ineptitude can be forgiven. You know what, screw swords. If it’s necessary, he’ll just throw it away and punch someone in the face. (This plan will backfire if _they_ have a sword, which they undoubtedly will, but Wyatt’s frustrated. Sue him.)

Wyatt wipes a trickle of blood from his nose and glances around, realizing that Rufus isn’t among the onlookers. That’s not entirely weird, since he said he was going off for a nap, but given as it’s the longest time they’ve been apart since landing, and there’s still the strong possibility of a Rittenhouse assassin lurking around a corner to do in Eleanor, it makes Wyatt nervous. He’s about to suggest that he go off to look for Rufus when Richard says something that makes everyone’s heads swivel around. Flynn, for the first time, looks unnerved, and Wyatt abruptly changes his mind. Rufus is probably fine. If Flynn is going to get pantsed, he wants to stick around and see it.

Whatever Richard has said, it also makes Lucy look a little worried, and she opens her mouth as if to say something, before clearly remembering that this is not a situation where she will have any influence whatsoever. Wyatt glances at her, struggling to repress the usual prickle in his stomach that she seems more anxious about Flynn possibly being hurt than about him. “What did he say?”

“He wants to spar Flynn himself,” Lucy supplies, after a pause. “With real swords.”

Oh-ho. This just got interesting. Wyatt supposes it’s too much to hope that Richard will flay Flynn to a pulp, though he knows that they can’t actually let that happen, and Richard probably won’t do it anyway. (If nothing else, because it shuts off the possibility of anything else later.) “Is he allowed to do that?”

“He’s the king,” Lucy says wryly. “He can do whatever he wants. And he was – is – known for his bravery, it’s how he got his nickname, and a total disregard of danger. He always fought in the front lines in all his wars and he loves getting his hands dirty, he’s not some modern royal who waves from a balcony and cuts ribbons.”

Wyatt knows a little of this. He read a book on the crusades while he was in Afghanistan, because there was not a lot else to do in the desert and because a lot of people kept saying the post-9/11 War on Terror looked like a modern one, and he wanted to know if that was true. He still isn’t sure, though he remembers the parts about Richard kicking a lot of ass. The siege of Acre, the battles of Arsuf and Jaffa, the siege of – Wyatt can’t remember the name, but it started with D – and a few others. This guy can take on half a dozen fully trained knights at the same time, he’s legendary for a reason. Oh please, oh please, oh _please_ make Flynn fight him. Even he is going to have his hands full and then some.

There is a brief move among the retainers as if someone should probably discourage Richard from doing this, but it’s clearly part of his daily schedule anyway, and nobody wants to take on that thankless task. Richard shucks his cloak, rolls up his sleeves, and ties his thick red-gold hair back, then steps into the ring with a quick, agile motion. He’s just as tall as Flynn, and in an age before protein shakes, there is still a lot of lean muscle. Wyatt finds himself looking a little too long, in fact, and glances over at Flynn instead. He looks intimidated, if only briefly. _Better you than me, pal._

Flynn changes out his practice sword for the real one he wore from Paris, and Richard draws his own. Wyatt thinks that if by some mad fluke, _Flynn_ is the one to hurt and/or kill Richard and that’s the reason history gets fucked up, Rittenhouse is really going to have a nice long evil chuckle later. Even he can’t do that. Right?

The combatants pace backward, as before. Lucy makes a brief, nervous sound in her throat and clutches at Wyatt’s arm, and he refrains from voicing his desire that Flynn comes out of this with an equal number of injuries – it’s only fair, after all. Still, any substantial medical care is going to be a bitch in the twelfth goddamn century, and Wyatt doesn’t want him _dead._ (Well, that’s still up for debate, but anyway. Certainly not before they get home. And besides, nobody gets to kill Flynn apart from him. It’s a very confusing relationship.)

Richard nods at Flynn, who nods back. With that, and no further preliminary, the fight starts.

Contrary to Flynn and Wyatt charging each other like a pair of maddened warthogs, neither Flynn nor Richard moves to close the gap immediately. They circle instead, deliberate and consideringly. Flynn, who is not an idiot, is not about to race headlong at Richard the goddamn Lionheart, though Wyatt still kind of wishes he would. Both of them feint briefly, as if trying to draw the other into an attack, but neither of them falls for it. They step closer, and then closer, as the crowd seems to be holding its breath. Annoyingly, Wyatt is too.

There is a final instant, and then Richard spots an opening. He goes for it almost too fast to see, as Flynn is forced to duck rather than try to block it, and this puts him off his footing for Richard’s next attack, which whistles through the air sharply enough to make even Wyatt wince. Flynn manages to get off half a parry, as the swords tangle and screech with a flash of sparks, and Lucy’s grip tightens on Wyatt’s arm. Under other circumstances, this might be more enjoyable, but his attention is too fixated on the fight. He can’t help it. It’s… a lot.

Flynn twists his head out of the way of another series of surgically precise blows, finally gets his feet under him enough to try a proper counterattack, and Richard flicks it off like a man swatting a fly. He is holding his sword easily in one hand, while Flynn is using two, and after a pause, as if to make it more sporting, Richard shrugs and switches it to his left hand. Flynn backs up and considers him, breathing hard, a small nick in one eyebrow that is bleeding down his face. Wyatt feels an absurd urge to do the wave, which he suppresses. He’s also pretty sure you’re not supposed to cheer for anyone except the king in this situation, but he finds himself raising his voice anyway. “Hey, come on, Flynn. Come on, Flynn!”

Lucy gives him a surprised sidelong look, though she seems too nervous to actually say anything out loud. There’s a few-second interlude as Flynn catches his breath, which seems as graciously allowed to him by Richard as his hints were to Wyatt. It’s clear that the possibility of hurting Richard and pissing him off is also on his mind, though Wyatt’s realizing that the only way Flynn could kill him is if Richard dropped his sword, stood dead still, and let him do it (which seems, to say the least, unlikely). It’s almost vindicating to realize that even Flynn has met a historical figure he simply cannot brush out of the way, as he has done on noted occasions before, and that indeed, said historical figure is whupping his ass. Wyatt knows that Flynn is a machine. Someone this much better than him is scary.

After a final moment, Flynn apparently decides to hell with it, and closes in for an all-out barrage. Now they are really going at it, Richard’s sword flicking and flashing and scraping up and down and side to side as none of Flynn’s blows even get near him, though it looks like it’s taking slightly more of an effort than before. They end up briefly almost nose to nose, then Richard does something very fast, Flynn’s arm gets twisted behind him, and his sword goes flying. The next instant, the tip of Richard’s is at his throat, Flynn is on his back in the mud and breathing like he’s been chased by a train, and raises his hands. _“Je cède.”_

Richard pauses, then grins. Sheathes his sword, offers Flynn a hand up, and the two of them slap each other’s shoulders and pound each other’s backs in the time-honored tradition of men everywhere. Watching it, and having the distinct impression that Flynn has just earned Richard’s respect, sends another strange twist through Wyatt’s chest. God, this… this happens all the time, doesn’t it? All the time. Reflexive as being sick. He doesn’t even like Flynn, at least as far as he can tell, but he also doesn’t like it that Flynn seems to be getting so chummy with Richard. And for Richard dismissing Wyatt in one word as “terrible” and not paying him a single moment of attention since… it’s not that he _wants_ Richard to notice him, at least maybe not in the same way he’s clearly noticed Flynn, and yet…

Wyatt swallows, not even sure what’s lodged in his stomach, other than it feels cold and heavy and he is only now wondering how long it’s been there. Is it the scrawny kid who grew up in a West Texas double-wide where everything was always broken, they were so poor that they ate off reused paper plates, and whenever he went to school, he was consumed by jealousy for the kids with their fancy clothes and backpacks and parents who picked them up in gleaming SUVs? Hell, those kids weren’t even rich; there wasn’t exactly Dallas oil-baron money where he grew up, though there were plenty of the stiffs who worked the pumpjacks. But everyone was rich to that angry, dirty kid who got C’s in class, hid his bruises from the teachers, and went to Bible study for three years before they cottoned on that he was only there for the free food and none of the Jesus stuff had stuck. Wyatt spent his entire childhood being madly, soul-deep, burningly jealous of the whole world, and maybe the habit has stuck far deeper than he ever realized. Anything that anyone else has, he wants it, no matter how many problems it’s caused him as an adult. It’s how he lost Jessica the first time, and arguably the second time as well. It’s how he’s fucked things up with Lucy. And now, it just hits automatically because of course it does, and he can’t tell if it’s aimed at Flynn or Richard or both of them, and…

Wyatt turns away, staring up at the castle walls, which have gone dark as the sun has vanished behind them. It’s close to sunset, it will be dinner soon, with whatever they’re supposed to do at identifying and catching the Rittenhouse bastards. God, how the fuck has a white-trash gearhead poor boy from West Texas ended up in this job? Standing in medieval France before the great-great-great-great-granddaddy of America is even invented, let alone most of the modern world, with his time-traveling companions, trying to wrap his head around him being more jealous of either his nemesis or Richard the Lionheart. God, this is too much. It was supposed to go away when he drove his dad’s car into the lake and rose up from the water, the closest to a baptism he was ever going to get. It was supposed to go away.

“Wyatt?” They might be estranged, but Lucy has still sensed his distress. “Are you okay?”

“What?” Wyatt harrumphs, clears his throat, and forces a smile. “Oh yeah. Fine. I gotta say, that was pretty good. Watching Flynn get his tail whipped for a change.”

It was, at that, though it feels more artificial than he might have expected, and she glances at him for a moment longer, with some concern. Then she glances back at Flynn, who is still breathing hard, but grinning, as he talks to Richard. Richard claps him on the shoulder again, then goes over and climbs out of the ring, putting back on his cloak and striding out of the yard. The coterie hurries after him, and the bells from the church just down the way start striking the evening hour – which, Wyatt remembers, is Vespers. Supper will be soon.

He turns around to see that Lucy has gone over to Flynn and is checking if he’s been any more hurt than a few gashes and bruises. Wyatt’s first impulse is to make some sort of passive-aggressive comment to her later about how she didn’t do that for him, but then, she did just ask if he was all right, and he deflected. Jesus. Maybe try something different, for goddamn once? So he awkwardly crab-walks over and clears his throat. “I think you took it way easier on me than he did on you. That was pretty hardcore.”

Flynn’s mouth twists up wryly, as if understanding that that is close as Wyatt can presently come to a compliment, and they nod at each other again. Then Flynn says, “No, he definitely took it easy. If he was actually trying to kill me, I’ve have been dead twenty minutes ago.”

“So, moral of the story, don’t give him any real reason to kill us.” Wyatt wonders how well that would concord with Richard finding out that they’ve been sent by his mortal enemy to spy on them, and decides that the answer would be: hella not. Great. “He seemed to think you didn’t completely suck, though? Right?”

“He said I fought well,” Flynn acknowledges. It’s a small but genuine smile that pulls at his mouth this time, and it does further unwelcome things to Wyatt’s insides. “Anyway, we need to get changed for supper. Where’s Rufus? We should probably find him.”

 “I’ll go look for him.” For once, Wyatt doesn’t feel the need to hang around to spy on Lucy and Flynn, and would welcome some time to gather his thoughts. “Go and see what – whatever we’re staying. Do we actually know that yet?”

“I don’t think so.” Lucy glances at Flynn. “Come on.”

With that, they head off, and Wyatt goes in the opposite direction, where they last spotted Rufus. Part of him wonders if it was really a great idea to let Rufus wander off by himself, and his anxiety is humming in his chest as he speeds up (well, so much as one can speed up) the tower staircase. Reaches the top, starts out, and –

It’s an unfortunate thing for Wyatt that he just got beaten once, and hence is already in less than tip-top shape, as he catches a whirling shadow out of the corner of his eye. The next instant his head is cracked hard against stone, he sees stars, and flails out to punch wildly, thinking that he was not counting on having this makeshift theory of self-defense tested so soon. At least his opponent does not seem to have a sword, not that that’s really a fucking comfort, and as his spinning vision resolves to see a long, thin dagger at his throat (did Flynn call that a poniard?), the person holding it is absolutely no comfort at all. She is grinning in a satisfied manner, red wisps of hair escaping from her braids. “You know,” she says. “I guess some things just never change no matter the century, huh? Like you getting your butt kicked by absolutely everyone.”

“You.” Wyatt grits his teeth. “Great.”

“Me.” Emma sits a little more solidly on top of him, green skirts flooded on the floor, as she twists the poniard leisurely into the hollow of his throat. “Had a nice view for your _Braveheart_ session earlier. Very. . . stirring.”

“Where’s Rufus, you bitch?”

“Oh, look. Nobody’s ever called me that before. Really original.” Emma grins, canines sharp and white. “As for Rufus, I don’t know. You tell me.”

Wyatt considers the odds of knocking her off without getting stabbed in the neck, which at the moment, look bad. Besides, it sounds as if she hasn’t actually seen Rufus yet, and therefore is trying to get him to cough it up. Maybe Rufus saw _her,_ but was hopefully smart enough to immediately hide, or at least stay out of the way until she was gone. Trying to keep her talking, Wyatt says, “So is that your big plan, then? Turn up here and what – convince Richard to marry you? Get knocked up, hope it’s a boy, then kill him?”

Emma makes a scathing noise in her throat. “God. _Me?_ Are you crazy? Do you think there was ever the _tiniest_ chance that I was going to settle down as some submissive, wimple-wearing, embroidering little medieval dormouse to pop out royal babies? Like I got through Caltech for that. Besides, aren’t you the one who should be more concerned about that? Jessica misses you, by the way. She thinks I don’t know, but I do.”

That catches Wyatt more solidly between the eyes than any of either Flynn or Emma’s blows. He tries to summon up something snarky, but it gets lost. “Oh?” he says at last, as coolly as possible, which is not very. “Does she?”

“Yeah. Couple months along now, she’s getting a little poochy. And probably broody too.” Emma shrugs. “Like I said. Misses you.”

“Look.” Wyatt hates hearing the pleading note in his voice, but he can’t help it. “You did whatever you did to Jess, and – fine, just – just don’t hurt her and my kid, all right?  Please.”

“Why would we have to hurt her? As long as she’s a loyal member of Rittenhouse, she doesn’t have anything to fear.” Emma is clearly enjoying this, stringing him out, taunting and testing him. “In fact, you’re the one who’s hurting your presumable unborn child more, trying to stop what we’re planning. Then again, Wyatt, really. When do you ever make the right call? Jessica’s useful, sure. And like I said, she thinks I don’t know that I’m on to her. But if she steps too far out of line, well. . .”

“Please. Jesus, please!” Even as he begs, Wyatt knows that it’s not going to do any good, that Emma can and will kill Jess and the baby too if she poses too much of a threat. Maybe they can keep her delayed in the past somehow, but as long as she has control of the Mothership, she could still transmit the order. “You bastards brought her back as some version of herself that always remembered being one of you, and then you’d just kill her?”

“You got her killed last time. Remember?” Emma raises both gingery eyebrows. “Or is that something else you’ve selectively forgotten?”

Wyatt doesn’t know what to say. He clearly cannot in good conscience endanger his own child, especially when he’s just been thinking about his own upbringing, how his father failed on every level. Nor can he agree to endanger Lucy, Flynn, Rufus (again), and all of history, either, especially when it’s already been a clear struggle to build back what he’s blown. There’s another queasy pause as they stare at each other. Then Emma says, “I’ll make it really simple for you. You don’t tell your friends that I’m here for, oh, another twenty-four hours. Or, if someone has tragically already spilled the beans, you divert or deflect or whatever else. One more day. Easy, huh? Then Jess and Wyatt Junior are safe. You know, I really hope it doesn’t take after you. That would just be depressing.”

“One day, huh?” Wyatt tries to sound offhand. “So you can get your evil ducks in a row?”

Emma shrugs. “The idea is that you don’t interfere for that time, yes. Your call. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to change.”

With that, she slides off him, gets to her feet, twirls the poniard away, and strolls down the corridor and out of sight. Wyatt lies there for several more stunned moments, before gathering the wherewithal to pick himself up and stumble in the other direction. It’s dark enough now that torches and lanterns are starting to be lit across the castle, and he emerges into the courtyard, into the cool spring evening, and follows the crowd across into the hall. It’s loud with talk and laughter, though it doesn’t look like the meal has started yet, and he spots Lucy, Flynn, and – thank God – Rufus seated at the high table. If there is royal favor to be had, it appears they’re in it, and Wyatt squirms through the crush to the empty chair at their side. “Hey,” he says weakly. “Rufus, looks like you’re fine after all, huh?”

“Yeah, though that was in doubt for a little while there,” Rufus says. “I gotta tell you, I just told Lucy and Flynn. Emma’s here, I saw her in a corridor earlier. Obviously, I hid from her like a sane person until she was gone, but – ”

“Are you. . .” God, Wyatt hates doing this. “Are you sure it was her?”

Rufus gives him an odd look. “I’m pretty sure I recognize the woman who _shot_ me, yes.”

Wyatt grimaces. Lucy and Flynn are also staring at him as if wondering if he’s all right, and he really, he _really_ needs to try to not totally blow this. Finally he says, “Fine. Yes. I just saw her too. That’s why I’m late to the party. She jumped me back there.”

“So you just tried to get in some bonus gaslighting?” Rufus shakes his head. “Man, you know we’re mostly friends again, but what the hell?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. She. . .” They’re gonna take this really well, by which Wyatt means they’re not. “She threatened to kill Jessica if we didn’t let her have free rein for twenty-four hours, all right?”

There’s a communal grimace visible on the other three, which all things considered, is fair. “Great,” Rufus says. “Another award-winning episode of _Wyatt Screws Us Over,_ now available on – what’s even more prehistoric than VHS? Betamax?”

“It’s my kid, all right? I know none of you trust Jess, and yes, I know I messed it up, but – what was I supposed to do, just agree to it?”

“No,” Flynn says, which is an unexpected choice of ally. Then again, he is obviously sensitive to the idea of Rittenhouse murdering people’s children. “And I’m surprised you told us, though I don’t think you would have if Rufus hadn’t first.”

Wyatt winces. Cruel, but again, fair. “I know we can’t let Emma just do whatever for a day without trying to stop her, but – guys, can we just. . . think about this?”

“Sure,” Flynn says. “We find her tonight and kill her. Problem solved.”

It’s on the tip of Wyatt’s tongue to say that there’s no guarantee this will keep Jess safe too, but he knows he can’t push it. Just then, there’s a stir and a fanfare, and everyone clatters to their feet, pulling off caps and hoods, as the hall doors swing open and Richard and Eleanor enter, arm in arm. They’ve both changed for dinner into matching green velvet that sets off the fire in their hair, tall and stately and beautiful, and the torchlight catches on the gems and gilt. They clearly enjoy looking good for the masses, and process up to the dais, where two servants, tabards emblazoned with the twin lions, pull back their chairs for them. They graciously sit, and Richard waves a hand, beckoning everyone else to do the same. There’s a clatter and a scrape as they do, and Richard says grace in Latin. After the murmured “Amen,” hands move to cross themselves, and servants enter with the food.

Despite Wyatt’s brief panic that this was going to be some big fancy feast, it’s not actually that formal, and after the day they have had, they’re starving. It’s definitely the best they’ve eaten thus far, as is only fitting at the king’s table. There are small roast birds in rich creamy sauce, seasoned with exotic (and extremely expensive) spices like saffron and pepper. Shellfish soup, venison boiled in almond milk, mutton and onions baked into flaky pastry shells, meat and mince pies, and more. There’s also some kind of tender white-meat fish in butter and garlic that looks very appetizing, until Flynn informs them that it is lamprey, aka a kind of small blood-sucking eel. Big delicacy. No one’s sure they feel up to trying that (Rufus snatches back his knife in a hurry). But there’s a lot to sample instead, it’s all very tasty, and there’s also plenty to drink. The servants are keen to keep filling their goblets, and have to be firmly discouraged. They need to keep clear heads.

Flynn gets distracted in talking to Richard, and Lucy is gazing adoringly down the table at Eleanor. Wyatt and Rufus sit side by side rather awkwardly, until Rufus mutters out of the corner of his mouth, “Mind not trying to make me look like a liar and/or an idiot again?”

“I’m sorry.” Wyatt stares down at his plate. “Emma just – caught me off guard.”

“Yeah. She’s good at doing that. You can’t still keep trying to play both sides, remember? Jessica chose Rittenhouse, not you. She’s not going to care if we die, and let me remind you that some of us already did, so. . .” Rufus hesitates. “Maybe we don’t have any responsibility to care whether she does. I know it’s complicated since she’s pregnant and all that. But if we still can’t trust you to pull your weight, or actively go against us – that’s going to be a problem. I’m not gonna pussyfoot around.”

“I know.” Wyatt blows out a bleak breath. “I’m going to be there for you, for all of you. I want to do better. I swear.”

“That’s nice,” Rufus says. “I mean it. I really hope you will be. But you know that I’m with Lucy and Flynn on this. There’s gonna have to be more than just talk.”

Wyatt looks at him, trying to think what else to say, when he’s distracted by a movement at one of the nearby tables. One of the noblemen, moving as if to scratch his nose, then dropping his hand out of sight. There’s something about that which seems off. Or rather, Wyatt knows exactly what it reminds him of, but it’s not something that you’re supposed to see here, not when they’ve spent the afternoon with the weapons of choice, not when –

“HEY!” Wyatt jumps to his feet, rocking the trestle table and startling everyone. He whirls toward Eleanor, who looks (understandably) startled. “MA’AM, DUCK!”

Obviously, she doesn’t understand him, she’s staring at him like he’s lost his mind, and Wyatt’s pretty sure that tackling the queen is going to get him beheaded pronto. But he doesn’t have time to waste, and he doesn’t know what the bleeding blue hell Rittenhouse is playing at, trying to assassinate her with a modern weapon in full sight of everyone. Not to mention her legendarily talented-at-kicking-ass son, who will tear the killer literally limb from limb the instant he gets his hands on him. This seems wrong, this seems very wrong, but they still can’t take that chance. Otherwise –

Wyatt launches himself at Eleanor –

– just as, all the more shockingly given that pistols won’t be invented for oh, another five hundred years, the shot goes off.


	6. Chapter 6

One certain way to liven up your dinner party, no matter the century, is to have someone get shot in the middle of it. However, this is literally the first time in history that this has ever happened, and people are staring around in confusion and terror – it sounds like a bolt from the blue, maybe a beam breaking or a stone collapsing or some kind of surprise attack, they have no idea. The first cannons won’t come into field warfare until the fifteenth century, and muskets and handguns a while after that. Flynn is in overdrive, because he doesn’t know who the shot hit, he has too many people to protect, and not enough hands to do it all at once. He wheels toward Wyatt and Eleanor, then back to the sleeper agent. “There!” he yells at Richard. “It was that man. Just take him, don’t do anything else, we need – ”

This is too late, as Richard has already vaulted over the table, landed on the far side, and is plowing through the crowd like an enraged, red-headed bulldozer, as people push and shove in all directions trying to clear a path for him. Flynn doesn’t know if his vain attempt to get Richard to _not_ kill someone for once (no comment from the peanut gallery) is going to work or not. If this agent has a cyanide capsule like the one in Rouen, they aren’t getting any information out of him anyway. Jesus, is this the new Rittenhouse? Targeting a huge, foundational turning point and willing to run through as many of their own lives as necessary, to ensure they aren’t stopped? Flynn almost misses Lucy’s creepy great-grandfather as the evil mastermind. At least he was just a dick. Emma is fucking terrifying.

There is, however, no leisure to ponder that question. Lucy and Rufus have jumped to their feet, almost overturning their plates into their laps, but neither of them appear to be hurt. Flynn pushes them under the table, which is heavy oak and looks capable of withstanding a few rounds, just in case. Then he shreds some manservant off his arm, and charges toward Wyatt Logan’s bright idea to jump on top of an aristocratic seventy-three-year-old woman unexpectedly. Of course, he was trying to save her life, but still.

Eleanor is giving Wyatt a piece of her mind in what sounds like extremely colorful Occitan, but she switches back to French at the arrival of Flynn. “Garcia – I am informed that _is_ your name, is it not? Will you kindly remove your impertinent yeoman from my person and provide me with an _extensive_ explanation as to what just – ”

“Apologies, Your Grace. Later.” Flynn crouches down and grabs Wyatt by the shoulder. “Hey. Hey, where did you – ”

Wyatt grimaces, trying to shift himself off Eleanor and keep pressure on the hole in his side. It looks like the bullet hit between his lower right ribs, and there’s no exit wound in his back, which means it’s still in there. This means there’s going to be twelfth-century emergency medical care, the one thing they were hoping so very much to avoid. “Nailed me pretty good,” Wyatt manages. “Don’t you need to get the guy who – ”

“Richard’s after him.” Which is going to be its own very bad can of worms in a moment, but one problem at a time. Flynn eases Wyatt off Eleanor, who frowns as she sees the blood – she doesn’t understand, after all, how he has gotten hurt. Then Flynn tears off a swath of the tablecloth and wads it up, pressing it to Wyatt’s ribs, as it drinks up and turns a slow, oozing scarlet. “For once in your life, shut up and don’t do anything stupid.”

Wyatt is clearly in a lot of pain, but he still manages a disbelieving look, as if pots in glass houses should not be throwing too many stones at kettles. Lucy and Rufus have emerged from their sheltered position under the table, which stresses Flynn out further, and are trying to see if Wyatt’s all right. There is still a lot of noise in the hall. Well, this has comprehensively shot to shit (literally) all their plans for the evening, or going after Emma.

“What in God’s name is going on?” Eleanor demands, imperious but slightly unnerved, as Flynn gives her a hand to her feet and glances her over for any major injuries. “How was your man wounded? That sound earlier, what was – ”

“As we said, Your Grace. Someone in the castle wanted to kill you, that was why we were here.” Flynn is trying to juggle several pressing tasks at once, he can’t really focus on talking to her, and Eleanor is clearly aghast that she is not his instant and overall priority. Royalty. He glances around in search of a second agent who might be thinking about a shot, bad an idea as that now would be, but something seems wrong about this entire scene. There were far more ways to kill Eleanor inconspicuously, and not in a way that would risk public detection or interference by the team. Yes, maybe it was important for Rittenhouse’s plan that there could be no question about Eleanor’s death, that it was a shocking public spectacle with an unexplained weapon, but Flynn still doesn’t like it. Almost like it was a deliberately failed attempt, forcing the team to act and show their hands, get one of them hurt, maybe worse, and stoke Richard’s suspicion. He is not just going to be satisfied with the “we totally know Saif al-Din!” cover story now. If he finds the gun on the agent, and then sees theirs –

Flynn kneels down next to Wyatt again, just as the man who was sitting on Eleanor’s other side, who until now has been trying to run crowd control, yells for someone and then turns to her. “Your Grace, are you sure you’re not – ? I can have that insolent oaf dragged to the dungeons, at least until the king comes back and – ”

“No, Andrew, not yet.” Eleanor still sounds a bit rattled, but more like her usual brisk self. “He seems to have been trying to protect me? I’m not sure. Garcia here, the Spaniard, it may be a wise idea to – ”

The man glances at Flynn. He is handsome and chestnut-haired, with angular cheekbones and shrewd grey eyes. About Richard’s own age, looks like a knight, wearing a gilted tunic and a ring with the royal seal. “I don’t recall that I’ve met Garcia the Spaniard?”

“We arrived just this afternoon.” Flynn know it’s not the protocol to offer a hand for a shake, but has to stop himself from doing it anyway. “This is my wife, Lucy, my serving man, William, and my friend, Prince Ali Ababwa. A noted ally of Saif al-Din, brother of the late sultan. We were here to warn against just such an event.”

“Were you?” The man cocks his head. “A Saracen prince, a Spaniard and his wife, and a very ill-mannered serving man? That is an odd company. Where do you hail from?”

Flynn hesitates. He said Agrabah to Richard earlier, he can’t be caught out in a lie (and damn Rufus for his choice of alibi, _all_ the songs are going to be stuck in his head now). “Prince Ali has come from Agrabah, my lord. It is one of the emirates of Damascus. My wife and I are from Castile. When Prince Ali left Damascus after the sultan’s death in God’s Year 1193, he came to visit his countrymen in Iberia. That was where we met him.”

Flynn is well aware that this is a flimsy-sounding story that is going to fall apart with any prodding, and the man – Andrew, Eleanor called him – does not look convinced. “And you commonly travel through French lands in company with exiled Saracens?”

Wyatt groans, distracting them, as Lucy and Rufus anxiously try to find more tablecloth for his bandage. They might both still be angry at him, but they don’t want him to bleed out in Richard the Lionheart’s banquet hall, and Lucy shoots a worried look at Flynn. “Is there any point in asking for a doctor?”

“No,” Flynn says grimly. “I’ll have to do it myself. Clear off the table and get the servants to boil some water.”

Lucy pauses, then nods firmly and stands up. She orders the baffled servants to boil a large pot of water, and Rufus sweeps the table settings, the silver plates and pewter candlesticks and bronze goblets, off to the side. Flynn jerks his head at Rufus. “Help me get him up.”

“Excuse me – ” Eleanor stares at them actually proposing to put the wounded man on her supper table. “We’ll call for a physician, or one of the monks from St. Peter and Paul, we – ”

“Beg pardons, Your Grace, it won’t wait.” Flynn grabs Wyatt by the shoulders as Rufus grabs his feet, and they lift him up onto the table as Wyatt lets loose with a string of inventive curses. Andrew steps forward, looking as if he is about to have a major objection to this, but Flynn stares him down. “I’d advise not.”

Andrew shoots an angry glance at Eleanor. “Are you going to allow these strangers to – ”

“Until we’ve made some sense of what in heaven’s name is going on here, Andrew, do shut up, there’s a good man.” Eleanor pushes past him and looks critically down at Wyatt, who is starting to turn the color of bad milk. “Garcia, do you know how to tend – whatever this is?”

“I can try, Your Grace.” He’s going to damn well have to. “Can you and – the other one make sure we have some room?” There are already a bunch of blasted looky-loos crowding forward, and the last thing Flynn wants to do is fish a bullet out of Wyatt with two dozen Johne Smythes gaping at him the entire time. “As well, you or any of your women, do you have an embroidery needle and thread?”

Eleanor turns crisply to order one of her ladies-in-waiting to get it, and Flynn can’t help but admire it – cool head in a crisis, indeed. She just got tackled and nearly killed (one was not quite the other, but still), she doesn’t know where her son went, the hall is in an uproar, Andrew is clearly (and probably justifiably) extremely suspicious of them, and there is a strange man bleeding all over the remnants of the roast swan, but Eleanor of Aquitaine is equal to the challenge. When she orders him to shoo off the gawkers, Andrew gives her a wary look, but doesn’t disobey. Flynn feels like he should know who he is, that it’s on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t quite bring it to mind. Or wait, was that –

In any event, they’re interrupted as the servants return, carrying a sloshing kettle of boiling water. Nobody clearly has any idea why this is needed either, but they set it down and Flynn looks around for a suitable surgical implement. Then he nods at Andrew’s dagger. “Can I borrow that?”

“What for?”

“Just give it to me!” Flynn barks, losing patience. “Now!”

After another look at Eleanor, Andrew draws it and hands it over, clearly expecting to be imminently stabbed with it, but Flynn doesn’t pay attention. He wraps his hand in another section of the tablecloth, then rinses the dagger in the boiling water – Wyatt is not going to enjoy this, poor bastard, but at least Flynn is trying to sterilize the instrument. Once he has done this, he returns, unwinds the bloody cloth from Wyatt’s side, and gets a wooden spoon, opening his mouth and putting it between his teeth. “Bite on this,” he advises. “Hard.”

Wyatt does so, clamping down, as Lucy grabs one of his hands and Rufus grabs the other. Flynn pulls away the shreds of Wyatt’s tunic and locates the wound, trying to guess how deep the bullet is. Deep enough to be a problem, and there’s a lot of blood. He wipes it away. The light is shit – it’s all candles and a ring of torches overhead, far from the fluorescents of a modern operating room, but then, all of this is. “Light,” he orders, not sure who’s going to listen to him. “I need some damn light!”

There’s a brief pause, and then an elegant ringed hand thrusts a candelabra over the prone patient. Eleanor has to be careful not to set Flynn’s sleeve on fire, but she doesn’t look about to swoon at the sight of blood (anyone who thought she would doesn’t know this woman very well) and it helps a little, if not much. Flynn makes a careful probe with the tip of the dagger, thinking that he would sell his soul for a pair of damn pliers, much less surgical forceps. He’s done a few of these before, but this is definitely the worst equipped he has ever been.

It takes a bit of very cautious digging (thinking the whole time of how Richard dies in four years from a crossbow wound that turns gangrenous after being treated by an incompetent surgeon), but Flynn finally manages to spot the bullet, gleaming slick red by the rib. It’s missed the abdominal aorta, otherwise Wyatt would definitely be dead by now, but gut wounds are notoriously tricky and prone to complication and infection even back in the modern world. This is going to severely limit their mobility – they definitely can’t take a rough week-long ride back to Paris, especially not if their cover has been blown and Richard is hunting them – _and_ their chance to go after Rittenhouse here. Flynn can and will do it alone, but he’s gotten a bit used to having partners, people to share the load. After plenty of time spent trying to kill Wyatt before, he’s genuinely bent to save him now. That’s… strange.

“Do you have…” Flynn tries to think of anything remotely forcep-like that Eleanor might recognize. He can’t pull it out of there with his fingers, though he might have to try. “Pincers? Like the kind carpenters use?” Or they might be the kind used for torture, which would not be far off in this instance, but whatever. He’s also not sure if the queen has any idea what carpenters, aka _peasants,_ use, but still. “I need those now. Small ones.”

He can see in her face that Eleanor in fact has no clue why these are relevant, but she turns to Andrew and orders him to fetch a pair of fine pincers from the blacksmith. It takes a few nerve-wracking minutes which they don’t really have to spare, but Andrew returns with something that might just work. It’s a little large-gauge, but Flynn doesn’t care. He washes them thoroughly in the boiling water, once more puzzling the servants, then gingerly inserts them into the wound, very careful not to push the bullet any deeper. Works them around, gets hold of it, and budges it just a fraction, testing if there’s going to be a spurt of blood when he loosens it. No spurting, that’s good, though it doesn’t mean they’re out of the woods. Wyatt swears again, muffled around the spoon he’s biting on, as Flynn incrementally tugs it out. Finally it comes free, with a wet plop and clink, and Eleanor stares at it. “Christ on the cross, what _is_ that?”

Flynn wants to tell her that it’s a Glock nine-millimeter slug, and it’s the same as the bullets they have in their guns, but this is definitely more explanation than she needs. “It’s what the man was trying to kill you with, my lady. It’s a new weapon from the east, it uses Greek fire to shoot that instead of a quarrel. It’s very deadly.”

Eleanor’s brow furrows. “So I in fact have William here to thank for saving my life?”

“You do, yes.” Flynn’s feelings on Wyatt – well, they are what they are, but he’s not going to cheat him of credit where credit is due. “We’re lucky he spotted it in time.”

Wyatt is struggling not to black out, but he raises both eyebrows, as if hoping that Flynn will say this again later. The lady-in-waiting has returned with a sewing needle and a fine length of embroidery silk, and Flynn washes those too, as well as he can. When he struggles to thread it, Eleanor takes it from him and does it herself, twisting the knot in the end, then hands it back. It uses even more of the tablecloth, packed hard against the wound, to slow down the bleeding enough for Flynn to think about stitches. He finally starts on it, as Eleanor continues to watch in befuddlement. “I have never seen any physician do any of this.”

“I don’t suppose you have, Your Grace.” Flynn concentrates on his handiwork. He can just about get this closed, but Wyatt’s going to have to stay in bed and not move much for at least a week, and that, to say the least, seems incompatible with their usual agenda. There is also nothing that he can think of as a disinfectant or antibiotic, except maybe alcohol, and pouring _that_ on there right now would just be cruel. “We learned it from the Saracens.”

Eleanor’s mouth goes slightly thin, but she doesn’t say anything. It’s close enough to being true, as medieval Islam – medieval Spanish Islam, especially – is a bountiful golden age of science and learning, from the cities of Cordoba and Toledo to the ninth-century Banu Musa brothers from Baghdad, who wrote the _Book of Ingenious Devices_ on automatic machines and mechanical devices, and the _Book of Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures,_ a central text of geometry. Medieval Muslims are often astronomers and poets and mathematicians and inventors, and there’s a good argument for them working out the theory of gravity long before Newton. They’re known as the origin of the number zero, among other things. The famous Jewish scholar and philosopher Maimonides was Saladin’s court physician in Damascus. Medieval Europe, as Flynn has been trying to tell everyone this whole time, is far from some rustic, illiterate, idiotic backwater, but when in doubt, you can feasibly explain any cultural or medical advance off as coming from the Saracens. Richard is one of the few European men, let alone crusaders, who actively respected and befriended them, and their skills saved his life more than once while he was in the Holy Land. Rufus the supposed Saracen prince would not be sitting at anyone else’s high table, or even their hall.

At last, Flynn puts in the final stitch, knots the thread off, and cuts it with Andrew’s dagger, then gets another length of the tablecloth and wraps it firmly around Wyatt’s torso. That’s about all he can do for now, and he straightens up slowly, feeling his back crack; there’s a crimp in his neck from bending. “Where’s Richard?”

“Still after the killer, I presume.” Andrew glances again at Flynn, sidelong. There is wariness in his gaze, mingled with a certain grudging respect, and something else that’s hard to place. “I should go see how he is. By your leave, my lady?”

Eleanor nods, and Andrew hurries out of the hall. That leaves the time team and the queen, all rather out of breath, as Eleanor wipes her hands on her skirt. “Well,” she says. “This has proven to be a rather spectacular supper. I daresay the last one of such import was that of Our Lord and his disciples. And it seems, again, that there is a Judas Iscariot in the ranks. Who was that man and why would he have wanted to kill me?”

Flynn and Lucy exchange a look. They have no idea how to answer this question either satisfactorily or honestly, and while Eleanor deserves some truth, too much is definitely bad. Finally Lucy, stammering a little at directly addressing her idol, says, “Your Grace, there are certain men, like the Hashshashin, who take money to kill people. This is a similar sort of guild. They are called Rittenhouse.”

“The Hashshashin?” Eleanor’s lips purse. “Those were the Saracen fanatics who murdered Conrad de Montferrat in Tyre, were they not? And you _do_ have a Saracen among you now, by my lights. So what does this – ”

“Rittenhouse are not Saracens,” Flynn interrupts. “We do not know what they want.” Which is… half-true, since they don’t know what Rittenhouse was doing with this specifically, but “they want to kill you, get Richard remarried, stop John from the throne and therefore Magna Carta and eight hundred following years of Western political and legal developments” is obviously off the table. “But they’re even more dangerous than the Hashshashin. If they’ve infiltrated your son’s court, as it appears they have, you must be vigilant.”

Eleanor takes a moment to consider that. The Hashshashin are a feared sect of medieval Muslim assassins – in fact, it’s where the modern English word _assassin_ originates from – led by the mysterious Old Man of the Mountain. They’re basically the al-Qaeda or ISIS of their day, and are known for their precise and expert killings, where – much like Rittenhouse, in fact – a member will submerge himself for months before acting, learning the mark’s culture and language and then finally rising up to strike. As Eleanor remarked on, they murdered Conrad de Montferrat, the newly elected king of Jerusalem, in 1192, and some suspicion fell on Richard for supposedly hiring them to do it. This is not true, but it does mean that the idea of another hidden assassins’ guild embedded in his court is something that he and Eleanor will take seriously. The queen considers. Then she says, “Rittenhouse?”

“Yes, my lady.” Flynn hopes that wasn’t a mistake, but it’s too late now. “There’s also a woman here, I don’t know if you’ve met her. Red-haired. Her name is Emma?”

Wyatt is barely conscious, but he jerks and utters a protesting sound, as if to remind Flynn that there’s a price involved in doing this. Flynn ignores him, as it is his prerogative to do in this situation (most situations, but especially this one). For her part, Eleanor looks startled. “The leader of this guild is a woman?”

“Yes. And a very dangerous one. You can send your guards to look for her, but be careful. She has the same kind of weapon as the man here, and she’ll definitely use it.”

Eleanor takes that in a moment longer, then nods once and beckons for the guards in question, saying something to them that sends them promptly on their way. Then there’s silence, except for Wyatt’s faint groaning, until the hall door thuds open again. Richard strides through, hair tousled and sleeve bloody, trailed closely by Andrew. He doesn’t have the Rittenhouse agent with him, which feels like a bad omen either way, and he makes straight back for the dais. “Mother, are you all right?”

“Yes, quite well. Your Spanish friend’s serving man took the worst of it.” Eleanor indicates Wyatt, laid out like a roast pig on the table. All they need is an apple to pop in his mouth. “Darling, your arm – ”

“He used that strange weapon of his on me. Missed, though. It’s just a graze.” Richard does not seem inclined to dwell on it. “The lot of you, any damned idea what this thing is?”

With that, making Flynn, Rufus, and Lucy startle and jump backward, Richard negligently drops the Glock in question onto the table, with a loud thunk. Flynn winces. “Christ, be careful with that! You’re lucky you didn’t – ”

And at that, he stops. It’s clear from their reaction that they know exactly what it is, and Richard’s ice-blue gaze goes very narrow. There is a hideous pause. Then in a very dangerous voice indeed, the king says, “Well?”

“Where is the man?”

“I asked you a fucking question.” At least Flynn is pretty sure that is exactly what Richard just said; he is known for his aptitude at cursing in multiple languages, scandalizing all number of chroniclers who primly decline to record his exact words. “Answer it, or I’ll find out what this does by trying it on you.”

“I was just telling your mother, there’s a guild of assassins called Rittenhouse here, and the weapon is from the east and uses Greek fire.” Flynn looks at Eleanor for backup. “We’ve been searching for them for at least a fortnight. They’re dangerous people and they tried to kill the queen, and there are definitely more of them in the court. The one just now, did you catch up to him or not?”

“I did, yes,” Richard says, after just enough of a pause to make it very clear that he absolutely did not answer because Flynn asked him to, and he’s still the one in charge here. “It was too late, he was already dead. There was some strange froth on his mouth, it smelled like bitter almonds. My first thought was that he had poisoned himself, but why? Poison is a weapon for cowards and women. Why would a man take it instead?”

Flynn winces again. The Rittenhouse sleeper agents they have encountered until now have been various degrees of committed to the job. There are some who seem willing and eager, but there are plenty of others who joined up for other reasons, who have been ambivalent or less certain. This now makes two who have popped cyanide capsules rather than risk being caught or pumped for information, and it speaks to the worrying level of zealotry that Emma must have cultivated in the personnel assigned to this case. They can’t keep falling on their sword forever, right? She still needs _some_ left over to carry out the plan? But with everything that already doesn’t add up about why they would actually try to assassinate Eleanor like this, Flynn can’t be sure. God, he _really_ should have killed Emma when he had the chance.

Too late, alas, for that. Flynn glances at Richard’s sleeve – which, graze or not, is still rather red. “Your Grace, should we – ?”

Richard seems inclined to once more irritably shrug it off, but Andrew clears his throat in a significant manner. “My lord, much as it pains me, I concur with the Spaniard on this. Let me look at that.”

“It’s a _scratch,_ Andrew.” Richard throws a tolerantly annoyed look over his shoulder at him, and Andrew looks back with both eyebrows raised, in a way that is both perfectly familiar and which makes Flynn abruptly realize who he thinks this is. Andrew de Chauvigny is Richard’s distant kinsman – second cousin or something – and his lifelong companion, from their teenage days in Aquitaine to their crusade to the Holy Land to their wars against Philip. After Richard’s death in 1199, Andrew fights for Arthur, Richard’s nephew, rather than John, Richard’s brother. John captures him at the siege of Mirebeau in 1202 and proceeds to starve him to death in his dungeons, which is about SOP for John (it does pain Flynn that they have to make sure he becomes king). But as long as Richard’s alive, Andrew is pretty much constantly at his side, even when the southern French nobility otherwise makes rebelling against their liege lord into an art form. They’re so close that Philip specifically tries to make Andrew change sides and swear loyalty to him as part of an attempted peace deal with Richard in 1196, which predictably does not happen. And there’s no mistaking that look, as well as Andrew’s exceptionally cool reaction to Flynn earlier. It seems clear that he is in fact Richard’s long-term boyfriend, though that is obviously not how either of them would define the relationship. Since Richard has not reconciled with his wife and rejected his sinful sodomite ways like he was supposed to, it has not been called off, and while it’s not common or open knowledge, Richard’s habits are well known enough at this point that it’s probably also not a total secret. Well. This just got interesting.

Eleanor clears her throat, a bit pointedly. “My dear, perhaps you should have the Spaniard tend it. He did some rather interesting things to the serving man. If it’s a – ”

“No,” Andrew interrupts. “I’ll see to it, my lady. I saw what the Spaniard did, I can manage. Your Grace, if you _would_ come with me. . .?”

Richard still looks annoyed, as if he does not have time for all this fuss and would prefer to break some more heads, but he does not really have an enemy in range at the moment. With a look at Flynn warning him that they are absolutely going to continue this conversation later and he better have a few good answers, he allows Andrew to escort him out of the hall, and Lucy – who has apparently picked up on the same vibes – glances at Flynn. Then she says to Eleanor, “My lady, is there somewhere we can sleep? And settle our – serving man?”

“I’ll have chambers prepared.” Eleanor summons another servant – the chamberlain, presumably – with a clap of her hands, and instructs him to get some rooms ready. There is then the question of how to get Wyatt to a bed, since he can’t really walk and even Flynn does not feel up to hauling him by himself – especially if they suddenly run into another Rittenhouse agent (or Emma) around a dark corner and punching is forthwith called for. Finally, Eleanor gets a pair of brawny manservants to heft Wyatt between them in a large piece of canvas like a hammock, and they make a slow procession out of the hall, up some very dark and steep stairs, and up into one of the drum towers. The rooms are at the top, and Eleanor takes a skeleton key from her girdle and unlocks it, beckoning the manservants through to deposit Wyatt on the bed. Then she says, “Anything else?”

“I don’t believe so, Your Grace.” Flynn glances at her. “Thank you, but be careful. If they tried once, they could try again.”

“I’ll have double the guard posted.” Eleanor regards him shrewdly, the torchlight golden in her eyes, painting shadows on her face. “You know,” she says. “I’ve met quite a few Spaniards. I went to Navarre to fetch Berengaria, my daughter Leonor is married to the king of Castile, and with the amount of commerce that Gascony does over the Pyrenees, I fancy that  I can spot a genuine Spaniard when I see one. You do have a Spanish name, but I’ll be damned if I think that’s where you’re really from. I am grateful for your serving man saving my life, do not mistake me. But we _will_ be speaking more. Good night.”

With that, she turns and sweeps out, the servants following her, and there is a ringing silence. Wyatt is close to comatose on the bed, Rufus is checking if the door can lock from the inside, Flynn is covered in blood, and Lucy looks mildly shell-shocked. Finally Rufus, having put the bar in the door, says, “Did I totally read that wrong back there, or was Richard’s boyfriend _really_ not digging you?”

“You. . . read it accurately, I think.” Flynn looks around for somewhere to wash his hands. There’s a bowl and pitcher, so he scrubs at his knuckles and fingernails, which has only marginal effect. “And what Eleanor just said to me is that she doesn’t believe I’m actually from Spain. I told her that Rittenhouse was an assassins’ guild, I think she does believe that they’re dangerous, but we’re on thin ice.”

Rufus looks at Lucy for confirmation of this, and she nods. Then he says, “So Rittenhouse could have another sleeper among her guards, or something like that. Plus either way, we’re forced into giving Emma her twenty-four hours without interruption? Hell no.”

Flynn is not sure he likes what that tone is hinting at. “So what do you want? Rush out of here and hunt her down at midnight anyway?”

“Wasn’t that what you were suggesting?” Rufus looks at him challengingly. “Emma _killed_ me. Trust me, I have strong opinions about letting her run around unsupervised. Now it feels like that guy was supposed to deliberately mess up assassinating Eleanor, upping the odds that one of us would intervene and get hurt – and look, that’s exactly what happened. Keeps the rest of us tied down and distracted. Plus, two sleeper agents, two Hail Hydra deaths before we can interrogate them. Whatever they’re doing here, they want it bad. Can we _really_ afford to let Rittenhouse pull this one off?”

Flynn and Lucy glance at each other. Finally Flynn says, “All right, fine. I’ll go out and look for her, but you two need to stay here with Wyatt and – ”

“I’ll come with you,” Lucy interrupts. “You shouldn’t go alone.”

Flynn blinks. He has been assuming that Lucy will want to stay here to look after Wyatt – and frankly, he would rather have her tucked safely out of danger as well. “Shouldn’t we have someone who can speak French stay behind, in case someone turns up? Rufus and Wyatt wouldn’t be able to communicate on their – ”

“I don’t think anyone would come until morning, or at least anyone that would be very important.” Lucy is getting the stubborn look on her face that means she is not going to be deterred. “And since Wyatt already got shot, we’d be dead in the water without you.”

Flynn opens his mouth, starts to say something, then stops. He wants to point out that it’s rather adorable that Lucy thinks her presence alone will stop him from being shot, or whatever other malfeasances Emma will surely visit upon them. It also makes his blood pressure spike to think of anything like that happening to her. “Lucy – ”

Lucy gives him another look that makes him think of a dark alley in Chinatown, 1888, and her trying to the utmost end of her ability to kill Emma. Rufus isn’t the only one with serious motive to go after her, and Flynn experiences an even darker swoop of foreboding. He isn’t going to talk her out of this, he realizes. Either he tries to forbid her, and she sneaks out behind his back anyway, or he goes with her and tries not to let it all fall apart.

“Fine,” he says. “Rufus, you stay here and look after Wyatt. Don’t run out into the middle of a fight by yourself again, for the love of God. Keep the door barred no matter what, all right? Don’t open it for anyone but us. Wyatt, don’t suddenly start to die, it would stress Rufus out.”

Wyatt cracks a painful eye and glares at him. Good. Anger will keep him kicking.

Flynn draws a deep breath and attempts to prepare himself for the evening somehow getting even more unpleasant. Lucy has gone over to Wyatt, and it briefly seems as if it might be a tender moment – she does squeeze his hand and look at him worriedly. But then she says, “I need to take your gun.”

“Lucy. . .” Wyatt grimaces. “You. . . sure that’s a. . .”

“Gun,” Lucy repeats. Gently, but very, very calmly, and with an expression that brooks no dissent whatsoever. “Please.”

Wyatt hesitates, then nods, and Lucy reaches to remove it from where it’s strapped to the non-shot side of his torso. She brushes a hand over his forehead, then steps away and strides up to Flynn. “All right,” she says. “Let’s go.”

Flynn regards her grimly. A reckless and quite possibly homicidal midnight adventure with Lucy sounds like something he should enjoy a lot more, and who knows, maybe he will. Right now, the odds decidedly do not seem to be in his favor. And yet.

“All right,” he echoes back, and reaches out a protective hand to take her arm. “Come on.”


	7. Chapter 7

This has already been one of the longest days of Lucy Preston’s life – it started before dawn this morning, has seen them arrive at Poitiers, wash up, meet Richard and Eleanor, have a few sparring rounds in the ring, learn about Emma’s presence, culminate with Wyatt getting shot at dinner, and now seems liable to extend well into the night on a wild Rittenhunt – and some small part of her does just want to lie down, go to sleep, and hope it is over when she wakes up. Obviously, she didn’t _plan_ to go on a hair-raising midnight raid (well, it’s not midnight, it’s not even Compline yet) with the intention of taking out Emma before she can put her nefarious plots into action, but then, that is basically Lucy’s life now. There’s even the massively over-optimistic thought that if they could get Emma in time, this would be the last one ever, and they could go back to… whatever’s going to pass as an ordinary existence after this. Lucy honestly has no idea, and sometimes, she’s grateful for the excuse to put it off. At least she’s gotten used to this, though she knows it’s a mark of humans being able to cope and adjust to almost anything. To live in a permanent state of deprivation and trauma, and have your brain convince you that it’s fine, it’s fine, no looking at the little man behind the curtain. You don’t _actually_ want a settled, normal, happy life, do you? That would be boring.

Lucy speeds up, causing Flynn to take longer strides (he, of course, doesn’t actually need to run in order to keep up with her). Someone said they saw a red-haired woman leaving the castle earlier, in the chaos engendered by the botched assassination (Lucy wonders if that was another of Emma’s motives in staging it that way – nobody available to notice or stop her), and that she was on horseback. Oh joy, this means a return to it themselves. Flynn probably doesn’t mind, but Lucy decidedly does. Why couldn’t Emma have just been out for an evil moonlight stroll? _Why_ more riding? _Why?_

And yet, they don’t have the luxury of doing otherwise. They reach the stables and order their horses saddled, and Flynn makes a step of his hands for Lucy to scramble up, having to give her an extra boost because her legs are so stiff. She groans. “How far do you think she could have gotten? We can’t be that far behind her.”

“No,” Flynn agrees, mounting up with an agility that makes Lucy momentarily hate him. “But we don’t know which direction she was going, or how hard she was riding. We might have to keep it up through the night. If I can get a clear shot at her, I’ll take it, but that’s also going to make it very tricky to find the Mothership.”

“Rufus can work it out.” Lucy has faith in him. “Let’s just worry about catching Emma first.”

Flynn looks at her sidelong, then nods. He puts his heels into his courser, as Lucy does the same with the palfrey, and they gallop out into the late evening.

The castle gates are just about to be closed and locked with the double guard Eleanor has posted, but Flynn calls out and manages, after an interlude of haggling, for him and Lucy to be allowed through. The streets of Poitiers are under curfew as well, people hanging up their shingles and closing their shutters; the latest taverns can operate is until nine PM. That’s late-night anyway, given that you’ll be awake at dawn, and any trouble that intoxicated patrons get into would fall on the tavernkeeper’s head. In other words, there are not a lot of people they can ask if a red-haired woman just rode through here in a hurry, and besides, the townsfolk mostly speak Occitan, not French. However, there are a limited number of gates that Emma can go through – the one they arrived by, the one at the far side by the aqueduct, and a postern on the western wall. The latter is the smallest and most discreet, and it’s in the part of the city away from the steep river banks, opening onto the countryside beyond. In other words, if Emma wants to avoid notice in leaving Poitiers, and ride for a while without interruption, that’s probably where she’s headed.

Lucy and Flynn direct themselves accordingly, though when they reach the postern, it is also shut and locked. However, the night watchman is clearly not happy to see them, given the way he scrambles into his wooden tollbooth and pretends he is not there when they ride up. This is a fairly clear indication that a) Emma has been there, and b) threatened him with dire consequences if he let anyone follow her out. He is deaf to all their attempted reasoning (understandable, but still annoying) and finally Flynn, out of patience, draws his gun and fires it directly overhead, scaring the crap out of the poor bastard. He gives in, comes out and opens the postern for them, then presumably goes off to make his last will and testament.

Lucy normally would feel a lot worse for him, but this time she doesn’t look back once, urging her palfrey out into the dark blue hills beyond. It’s dark enough that she can’t really see more than a few yards, and the moon hasn’t risen yet. The only light, aside from the torches on the walls, is the scattered stars above, and she yawns hard and deliberately, trying to get more blood flowing to her brain. This, of course, only really makes her want to yawn again, and she turns to glance back at Flynn. God, he seems indestructible. Do his veins run with energy drinks? _And_ he already got beaten up by Richard, and had to perform makeshift emergency surgery on Wyatt. He should be flagging too.

If he is, however, it’s impossible to tell. He considers a moment, then clucks to the horse, spurring it into a quick trot. The plan appears to be to ride as long as they can and hope they run into Emma somewhere out here. There aren’t exactly highways or service stations or mile markers to lead the way. Lucy hopes they can find their way back.

They canter along for a while in silence, as Lucy does her utmost to ignore her throbbing thighs and gritty eyes and sore back and ass and head, the small, niggling worry in her heart for Wyatt and Rufus, and everything else. Instead she glances sidelong at Flynn, hoping he doesn’t notice her doing it. This is the first time they have really been alone since they left Paris, and to say the least, a lot has happened in that week. He has been almost the sole historian (she feels guilt at not being more helpful, a voice that sounds like her mother’s whispering that she should know more of this, should have studied more), he has dealt in multiple confusing archaic languages and spur-of-the-moment cover stories, demonstrated some seriously hot swordfighting skills, and navigated them through the courts of two rival kings with Rittenhouse up in everyone’s business to boot. Lucy is _really_ trying to ignore it, but the fact is indisputable. She’s had some kind of feelings and attraction to Flynn for a while now, but he’s leveled up about a thousand in that department since they got here. She can’t look at him without feeling something deep and raw and hungry in her stomach, something that _wants,_ and this is literally the worst time for it.

There are a lot of things she could say. She could also say nothing at all, which is always a safe option, but one that rasps her raw in a different way. Then she says, “I thought you didn’t give a damn about Wyatt?”

Flynn twitches, looking startled. “What?”

“That was what you said,” Lucy reminds him pointedly. “Back in Chinatown. But you’ve now saved his life twice in two weeks. Once when the Lifeboat crashed and we couldn’t wake him up and you gave him CPR, and now with the emergency surgery on a supper table while also keeping us from having our covers completely blown. Rufus and I probably wouldn’t be doing so well by ourselves, but Wyatt would definitely be dead. And it’s thanks to you that he’s not, and you and he and I all know that.”

Flynn looks as if it is in fact news to him that they’ve noticed, and also as if he is not sure what to do with that information. He starts to say something, coughs, and stops. Then he says, “I don’t like him. That doesn’t mean I’m going to let him die.”

“But _why_?” Lucy pushes. “You could. You spent plenty of time trying to kill him, before – ”

“Yes, before.” Flynn takes the reins to steer the courser through a broken, boggy bit of trampled ground, then canters up on the far side and pauses to make sure she navigates it safely. It astounds Lucy how innately and endlessly protective he is – of her, of all of them – when, as she’s just been reminding him, that was his exact opposite instinct for a while. “And most of that was his own fault. He can’t take me straight in a fight, as we’ve just demonstrated again. And if you’d believed me about Rittenhouse and stopped trying to interfere, I wouldn’t have had to do it at all.”

Lucy raises both eyebrows. “Your methods weren’t exactly designed to convince.”

Flynn shrugs, as if to say that’s for everyone else to quibble about, not him. There are another few moments as the horses’ hooves splash in the mire. Then Lucy says, “So what is it? Just about fighting Rittenhouse with help now? Is that what we offer you?”

“What do you want me to say, Lucy?” He sounds wary, not sure if this is a trick or she wants a platitude or a safe answer or something else altogether. To be fair, she doesn’t quite know herself. “You have a problem with how it is now?”

“No. That’s not what I – no. I’m – if I haven’t said it, I’m saying it now. You’ve carried all of us on this, and – I said it back in the tavern in Paris, but it’s true. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” For once, when his words are generally laden with sarcasm and biting wit and sassy turns of phrase and the rest of his drama, it’s soft and simple. It’s hard to make out the expression on his face, since it’s dark and he’s looking straight ahead, but it has a hint of that tenderness that he tends to show only to her. “You and I, we’ve… we’ve managed.”

Lucy supposes that she has helped, a bit, even if it doesn’t feel up to her usual standards (and God, that’s such an unhealthy reflex, like she’s filling out a scorecard of every mission and if she doesn’t provide a certain, quantifiable amount of useful information, her credential as a historian and a person will be yanked. Her mother, again). She looks at him again, thinking it’s a good thing that they’re on horses, moving at a brisk clip, and several feet apart, or otherwise she might be tempted to reach out, to touch. Wants to ask him what exactly he was going to confess in that moment before Wyatt interrupted, but he’s been so understated and elusive about what he actually _says_ to her (though his actions have said plenty). Does he not want to put undue pressure on her, or is it really just not how he feels?

Lucy doesn’t know why that makes her stomach writhe uncomfortably, or at least she would rather not think why. Yes, Flynn is very attractive – she’s a woman, she has eyes, she noticed that even while they were enemies – but she’s a grownup and she likes to think of herself as a sensible one. She’s not going to be swayed just by a pretty face. Plus, there is the obvious fact that she has no desire whatsoever to sleep with another of her teammates and have that once more go to pot in a spectacular and heart-crushing fashion. It hurt badly enough to lose Wyatt, and though he’s physically back at her side, the emotional part is a long way off. If she had to go through that with Flynn, her rock and her solace and her safe place (how has _he_ taken that job? How is it?) in the darkest hours of her life… well. She might flatter herself that she’s still strong enough to do it, but it is absolutely nothing she wants to go through or even try to contemplate. Flynn has always been _hers._ Shared with no one. He protects and defends and looks after Wyatt and Rufus, even if he’d never say it out loud or let them get comfortable, but her… no. She’s something altogether different.

They ride for a short while longer, until Flynn hears something, reins up sharp, and holds up a hand. Lucy is not quite as successful at stopping the palfrey on a dime, and it skids, sending her giddily off balance for a moment until it regains its footing. Flynn puts a finger to his lips and points ahead, and then stealthily dismounts, moving over to offer his arms for Lucy to slide down into. She knows it’s just to avoid making any noise, but she catches her hands against his chest as he, yet again, does not seem to expend any effort in any of this. It feels like an electric charge burns up her palms, and she has to resist the urge to jerk away too fast. Her cheeks are still hot, a small flutter rising under her breastbone, as she reminds herself that they very definitely need to focus right now. Hanky-panky, or at least extremely awkward sudden thoughts thereof, later.

Flynn doesn’t seem to have noticed, at any rate. He reaches into his tunic and draws his gun, and shakes his head when Lucy gives him a look asking if she should draw Wyatt’s as well. Leaving the horses behind, they climb up the next hill on foot, and edge up carefully over the top, peering down into the low green vale beyond. There’s a thin stand of alders and larch, dappled by the just-rising moon, but that’s not what is casting the most light. That is the eerie blue glow of the Mothership, which has just ginned up to launch speed and in the next instant, blows out of existence. Emma’s horse, tied nearby, rears and screams, pulling frantically at its tether, but doesn’t quite get loose.

Flynn and Lucy swivel to stare at each other in bafflement and terror. If Emma has somehow already put all her plans in place and is peacing out, leaving the surviving sleeper agents to handle the rest, they’re screwed. They were counting on stealing the Mothership to get out of here, after all, since the Lifeboat is toast. Was Emma asking Wyatt for twenty-four uninterrupted hours just as a misdirect? Bombing back to the future to see if things have changed yet, get a progress report on Rittenhouse’s activities – she’s the CEO now, maybe they can’t spare her too long in the field, terrifying (and terrifyingly competent) as she is. For a long moment, Lucy contemplates the possibility of living the rest of their lives here (that is, if they don’t get killed by any number of people). Tries to tell herself it won’t be so bad and they’ll adjust, just like they have to anything else. But she wants very much to be sick.

She reaches out blindly, grabbing for Flynn’s hand, and he holds it ferociously, steadying her from the brink of total panic. Lucy hauls in a few painful breaths, trying to tell herself there is another way back, even if she doesn’t see one. But just as she’s really about to lose it, the night starts to bend and ripple again, there’s a whine and whir on the edge of hearing, and the Mothership blasts back into the third dimension, landing with a slight skid in the silt. The door cycles open, casting eerie fluorescent light on this twelfth-century rustic countryside, and seven people troop out. Six men and a woman, all dressed in medieval chic.

One of the men turns to say something to Emma, who is just visible in the doorway. At once Flynn raises his gun, but it’s a long shot, they can assume that the Rittenhouse backups are all armed, and as the moon whispers out from behind a cloud, they both can see who the woman is, blonde hair braided in an elegant crown and green cloak artfully draped and clasped with a cloisonné brooch. It’s Jessica.

Both of their hearts skip a beat, though likely for different reasons. Flynn has a better shot at her than he has at Emma, but taking her out at this point is of debatable strategic value, and even he is not so cruel as to shoot Wyatt’s estranged, pregnant wife without him there at all or able to offer any opinion on it, to find out in some terrible way later. Jessica is an enemy, she is technically subject to the same rules of combat as any of the Rittenhouse goons she’s surrounded by, but while Flynn trying to shoot her now might be justifiable on some grounds, it would destroy a lot more on others. And he couldn’t bring himself to shoot John Rittenhouse, the terrified child of his mortal enemy. Is he really going to take out Wyatt’s unborn son or daughter, and call it square for Iris?

Lucy doesn’t know the answer, but she grabs at his arm just in case, shaking her head desperately. She has no reason to protect Jessica either, and perhaps if she was another kind of woman, she wouldn’t mind or just turn a blind eye, but that’s not it, that’s not her. _No,_ she mouths. _No, no, you can’t._

For once, Flynn doesn’t demur, if only since it’s clear it would get them into all kinds of trouble to be caught out here by themselves, no backup or shelter. Lucy has gotten better with the gun, but she’s not a sharpshooter or a soldier, and has never been involved in a sustained firefight with trained killers before. They have to observe, gather information, and not act, not yet. If nothing else, this makes it clear that Emma’s threat to Jessica’s life is no bluff, and she thought it would be easier to carry it out with her conveniently at hand. Oh God, is she planning to bring her back to Poitiers and – and what?

Lucy’s spinning head is distracted as Emma once more goes into the Mothership and shuts the door, and after a few seconds, it jumps out of existence again. The six guys and Jessica seem to think she’s coming back, since they start setting up a camp, laughing and talking and looking like they are on a corporate outdoor retreat (which technically they are, if you can forget… all the rest of it). Lucy stares harder at Jessica, trying to tamp down the morass of emotions that have risen in her chest at seeing her again. There’s anger and distrust and grief and an aching feeling like longing. They were friends, weren’t they? Jessica supported her, was kind to her? That can’t have all been a long-con act. There were other chances for Jess to hurt her, to actually walk away. And now this – is she just here for Emma to kill her more conveniently? Or –

At that, Lucy thinks of something, and it feels like another lightning bolt, but for a different reason. Jessica is dressed more nicely than the others; that is a fancy brooch, and there is fur edging her cloak, flashes of pearl bobs at her ears. The moonlight briefly catches on the embroidery on her skirt, which has the gleam of silk. She’s not looking so nice just to be thrown in a dungeon and held as a hostage. Which means, or at least strongly suggests, that that’s not why she’s really here. She’s here to marry Richard.

If you think about it, Lucy considers numbly, it makes sense. Emma probably doesn’t altogether trust Jessica, and wants her away from ongoing Rittenhouse operations in the present. Jessica already has plenty of experience at playing a loving wife, remaining embedded to gather intelligence or whatever they want from her, _and_ she’s pregnant. Since the entire point of this mission is to make sure Richard has a son to succeed him instead of his brother John, Rittenhouse isn’t going to take chances or wait and cross their fingers and hope he eventually feels guilty enough to engage in dutiful heterosexual babymakin’. Make this as painless as possible for him. Provide him with a new wife already pre-installed with a son (is Jessica far enough along, do they know for sure it’s a boy? They must) and exempt him from even having to sleep with her if he doesn’t want to. Jessica can live here for a couple years, then come home when Richard dies in 1199 (if she doesn’t kill him first). Just like Emma, ranching it in the 1880s alone for a decade, she will have proved her loyalty, and can return in triumph. As long as she’s happy leaving her child behind, to grow up as a thirteenth-century king and totally change all of known English and American history.

Lucy turns frantically to Flynn, trying to think how to communicate this without words, but he’s staring at Jessica with an expression that makes her think it might have occurred to him too. At that moment, there’s another whine and flash as the Mothership lands for a second time, and a further seven agents troop out. What the _hell._ Emma could theoretically be spending as much time in the present as she wants on each trip, and then jumping back to a few minutes later on the same night in April 1195.  Could have been gone for a couple weeks, having a spa date and going to evil board meetings and whatever else, then returning here. Time travel, it’s absolutely the _worst,_ especially when they can only sit here and watch.

However, as far as Lucy can tell (or maybe just wants this to be the case) Emma has been running a straightforward shuttle service tonight, there and back in real time. There are now fourteen Rittenhouse operatives plus Emma, and given that they’re all dressed for the job, they must have just been waiting around headquarters tonight for the boss to bomb in and pick them up. The team was thinking hopefully that the two agents down with cyanide capsules might mean that Rittenhouse has to conserve their resources, but they’re bringing in the most agents that Lucy and Flynn have ever seen in one place and time. It was bad enough when they had to track _one_ sleeper agent per jump. Now there are _fourteen?_ Plus Jessica?

Likewise, Emma doesn’t seem to be done. She vanishes into the Mothership again, which then jumps for a third time, and returns with a further seven, upping the total to twenty-one. There is a good mix of men and women, dressed for all levels of society, and after the _fourth_ trip, bringing what clearly look to be Jessica’s fake servants and ladies-in-waiting, there are almost thirty people in the glen. Lucy feels paralyzed. _Thirty?_

She and Flynn can clearly see that there’s no battle to be had here, and they slowly inch down the far side of the hill, though there is a hair-raising moment when one of the men looks up sharply and almost spots them. They take hold of the horses and try to sneak off as far as they can, but they also can’t just run away and leave the Rittenhouse camping party completely unsupervised. Once they have found a hidden spot that is well out of sight and earshot, but still close enough that they’ll be tipped off if the gang starts to move, Lucy almost collapses. “Oh my God,” she says at last, instinctively keeping her voice low. “That’s – that’s – ”

“I know.” Flynn’s mouth is grim. “That has to be a significant proportion of all their available operatives. After all, there are plenty of members who are in it for the benefits and the power and whatever else, but aren’t trained and expected to take on the time-traveling part. And bringing in fucking _Jessica –_ ”

There’s a pause as they look at each other and silently concur about why they think she’s there. Lucy blows out a breath. “We need to tell Wyatt, don’t we?”

“So what?” Flynn snorts. “He can run off to her and screw us over again? Like Rufus said earlier. Jessica’s clearly picked her allegiances.”

“But has she?” Lucy stares up at the star-flecked sky. God, she wishes she could just not think about this, could switch off her compassion and stop caring, when it seems like it would be so much easier. “I don’t trust her either and I’m not saying we need to make any special effort to rescue her, but I’m not entirely sure she’s here because she wants to be.”

To judge from Flynn’s expression, he could not give a single well-formed shit if Jessica is here to redeem herself in Emma’s eyes, or simply because Emma saw the opportunity and seized it, or any other explanation whatsoever. He won’t kill her, at least not before knowing for sure, and because of it being Wyatt’s child, inconvenient and unwelcome as that may be for the larger cause. But, that look says, he is far, _far_ from happy about it.

Lucy sighs, half-wanting to apologize to him and half-stubbornly convinced she has nothing to apologize for. They lie awkwardly side by side in the hollow of the hill, as the horses whicker and stamp at tether, and Lucy can feel the exhaustion rushing over her like the waves of a soft dark sea. Even if they had to get up and gallop off right now, she isn’t sure she wouldn’t just pass out and fall out of the saddle. She needs to sleep, she craves sleep with an almost physical, hallucinogenic intensity, but it seems irresponsible for both of them to knock off and potentially miss whatever Rittenhouse might do next. She should – she should stay awake, she shouldn’t make Flynn do it and keep watch alone, she should –

Lucy closes her eyes, just for a second, telling herself it is only that. Then she opens them, and it is cool grey predawn, the air calm and dew-damp and still, with the sun not yet in sight over the eastern horizon and Flynn snoring softly next to her. He has his hand on his gun, looks as if he stayed awake as long as he could possibly hack it, and will probably be very annoyed with himself when he rouses. A line is drawn between his brows, his mouth is set and grim, and since it’s been several days since he’s properly shaved, there’s a dark turf of stubble on his jaw, more than Lucy has ever seen him with. She lies there looking at him, reminding herself that a good chunk of Rittenhouse is camped about a quarter-mile off and she should possibly go run a scouting mission to see if they’re still there. But she can’t help but think that if Flynn woke up and she wasn’t here, he’d panic.

Without the sun, and still relatively early in spring, the air is chilly, and Lucy hesitates, then edges a little closer. Flynn is large and warm and comforting, she’s gotten used to sleeping with him nearby or next to her, and it’s a chance to look without the ever-present fear of being noticed or having to pretend she wasn’t or wanting to push him for more answers that he may or may not give. Her fingers are prickling again, the same way they were when he caught her last night, with that impossible, overwhelming urge to touch. There are a few shoots of silver in his stubble, more than there is in his hair. Her pulse keeps tripping in her throat, which is dry even after several swallows.

Lucy rolls onto her back and starts to mentally recite the U.S. presidents in order, which is a tactic of hers to calm herself down or take her mind off things or otherwise shake her out of whatever unprofitable train of thought she’s currently barreling down. But she can’t get further than about Polk before she finds herself glancing over again. She should try to concentrate on the fact that there was actually a man appointed to the highest office in the land named Millard Fillmore. What else does she know about ol’ Millard? Became president thanks to the death of Zachary Taylor, as he was his VP. Last president to be a member of the Whig Party while in office, endorsed by the Know Nothing Party in 1852, and lost his re-election bid (honestly, truth in advertising, you have to wonder if the Know Nothings would win today, which is a sad commentary on the state of America even without Rittenhouse – if Lucy recalls, they also started out as a secret society). Consistently ranked as one of the worst presidents, which seems cruel, given that he was already named Millard Fillmore. Rittenhouse doesn’t seem likely to be sponsoring any trips to his administration. Or –

Lucy turns her head and looks at Flynn again. Their faces are fairly close, and she should probably back up a little – if nothing else, because it would probably scare the dickens out of anyone to wake up and find someone two inches from your nose. She edges herself away carefully, digging her fingernails into her palms until they leave white crescent moons. Even if Flynn _was_ interested in pursuing something else with her (and she doesn’t know for sure that he is – he too has a wife and child he wants to save, he could still change his mind about leaving them), this is an even more horrible time to find out. For God’s sake, Lucy. Focus.

Instead, she just lies there with a dry mouth and a hammering heart and a slickness she can feel between her thighs when she moves them, until Flynn jerks, starts, and wakes up with a snort, rolling onto his side and grabbing for his gun by reflex. When it becomes clear that their hideout has not been found, he grimaces, rubs a hand over his scruffy face (he should not do that, it’s distracting) and pushes himself up on an elbow. With another look telling her to stay where she is (it’s amazing how good they have gotten at totally non-verbal communication, in small glances and gestures), he spiders off on all fours, careful not to stand up and present a broad target before he can be sure where Rittenhouse is, or if they have moved during the night. Climbs up the hill, then disappears down the other side.

Lucy lies very tensely, a knot in her belly for more than one reason, listening with all her might for shouting or gunshots, but the morning remains quiet. She is feeling like breakfast would be nice, but there’s not going to be a Starbucks to stop by on the way back (and this is France, they’d probably scoff at Starbucks on principle). Hopefully Wyatt and Rufus have not concluded the worst about their failure to return last night, and Wyatt is feeling a little better. Though honestly, finding out that Emma has shipped his (ex?)-wife in to marry Richard and leave their son here as Rittenhouse Joffrey (as Rufus so memorably put it) is bound to put a damper on anyone’s spirits. Jeez. Poor Wyatt. Between the two near-death experiences and now further emotional turmoil, it seems like the universe has pasted a _kick me_ sign on his back. Lucy is hardly so cold as to enjoy it, or want any more pain for him. She doesn’t know what else is going to be there for them, but she still cares for him deeply.

It’s another few nerve-wracking minutes until Flynn finally reappears. He sits down and rests his arms on his knees, scowling. “Well,” he says. “They have horses. I don’t know where they got them, though we can assume their previous owners are likely dead. They were talking, I couldn’t hear all of it, but I did catch something about the plan changing. Then Jessica and her escort headed off in the opposite direction than the one we came in. Emma isn’t going to risk taking her back to Poitiers and having us see her, now that she knows we’re there, so she’ll send her to another one of Richard’s cities and have him meet her there. And no, I don’t know which one that is.”

“What about the other agents?” It’s bad news that Jessica is about to slip through their fingers, but they need to get back to Poitiers and find out where Richard might be going next, then accompany him if they can. “Where did they go?”

“About ten of them went with Jessica on horseback. The others looked like they’d be walking. Probably get them planted in several nearby villages, have as many backups and second options as possible. I don’t know if they’ve all been equipped with their own cyanide pill, but not even Emma can afford to burn thirty trained operatives. They can’t all be under suicide orders. So if we could catch one – ”

“Would they talk, though? If they’ve been picked for this mission, they must be the best of the best, the uber-loyalists. Even if they don’t commit hara-kiri, they could still – ”

Flynn cracks his knuckles. “I’m willing to find out.”

Lucy raises an eyebrow, as if to remind him that grievous bodily harm is off the table until she says so (it’s not that she _objects,_ she just wants to make sure they’ve run through their options), and he gazes back at her with a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth expression that is… not the best thing for her currently rather tenuous self-control. God, he really needs to stop being so distracting. _Especially_ when he follows it up with that patented tongue thing of his, which makes her entire face feel like a brushfire. This can’t just be her imagination, can it? This spicy, gut-twisting, breath-catching chemistry, especially recently. Flynn can be soft and tender with her, almost unbearably so, and she has taken refuge in that on repeated occasions, has relied on it being there to catch her if she wants to fall. But she also wants him to, well, not be soft. He can pick her up and lift her and toss her around like a feather, and he would never, ever hurt her. It’s like the fuse of a long-burning stick of dynamite is on the brink of explosion inside her, and the thing about dynamite is that it does not care in the least if you ignore it or not. Eventually, and spectacularly, it is going to go boom.

Once more, Lucy drags herself away from her base impulses and focuses on the mission. “What about Emma?” she says. “Where did she go?”

“She waited until everyone was gone and then set off. She’ll be on her way back to Poitiers by now, so we need to be after her.” Flynn looks disgruntled. “And I can’t even shoot or blow up or lay a finger on the damn Mothership, because it’s our only ticket home too. At least we know where it is now, but with thirty Rittenhouse agents running around, we can hardly just jump in and bail out. Tempting as it sounds.”

“Yeah.” Lucy sighs and tries to work up any enthusiasm at all for yet another ride back. As for now, Emma doesn’t know that they saw her midnight taxi service, much less Jessica, so they have the element of surprise on their side – at least to a point. But that doesn’t make what they have to do any less daunting, or with any more likelihood of success. If anything, much less. They were still relying on the comfortable assumption that this would be like previous missions, even after having been presented with concrete evidence to the contrary. That was stupid and they are lucky it hasn’t gotten them killed, though it’s been a close-run thing. At any rate, they need to stay just far enough behind Emma not to tip her off that they’re on her tail, but not far enough to let her have free rein. It’s a delicate balance.

Flynn makes a step of his hands for Lucy to mount her horse as before, but she decides it might be better not to risk touching him too much, and clambers up on her own. Something flickers over his face – she can’t tell what. Is he insulted, or hurt, or surprised that she’s rejected his help, when it’s become such second nature these days to take it? Or does he figure that she can definitely get on her own horse like a big girl and no need to do it anymore? Or is Lucy horribly reading into all of this, because a state of advanced and deeply unwelcome thirst is not the greatest for perceiving the world (and the man responsible) in a clear and unbiased way? God. This is _terrible_.

They don’t talk much on the ride back, as the sun steadily rises and casts golden glow over the green French hills. Finally Lucy says, as a neutral and pertinent history question, “Where would Emma be sending Jessica, if she doesn’t want to risk us interfering in Poitiers?”

“Could be any of Richard’s other major cities.” Flynn squints against the morning light. “Rouen is too far, they won’t want Jessica riding too much if she’s pregnant. They probably also don’t want to risk taking her north and running into any of Philip’s men. They could be taking her to Angoulême, that’s only about seventy miles south of here and it’s technically one of Richard’s possessions. But the counts have a fractious relationship with the Plantagenets, so it’s not a sure bet. Bordeaux would be safer, though that’s further away. Or perhaps – ” He stops. “No. Chinon. It has to be Chinon.”

“Chinon?”

“It’s north of here, but not too far. Only about sixty miles. It’s in Anjou, that’s Richard’s other home territory through his father, and it’s near Fontevraud Abbey. That’s the Plantagenets’ favorite religious house, it’s wealthy and influential, and it’s where Richard and Eleanor themselves will be buried in another several years, along with Henry. If Richard is going to remarry, it would make sense to have it happen in Fontevraud, and they can get Jessica there relatively quickly and safely to wait for him. We’ll have to be sure when we get back, but I’d be shocked if it wasn’t.”

“Where’s Richard’s real wife?” Lucy can’t help but feeling bad for this poor woman, who has apparently been put aside for years and isn’t even going to get the reconciliation that she was supposed to, kept at arm’s length and forgotten by almost everyone, her role as queen taken by her formidable mother-in-law and her role as wife all but an afterthought. “Her name’s Berengaria, right? Berengaria of Navarre?”

“Yes, that’s her. I think she might be in Anjou right now as well, or Maine. They have a few different residences, but those are her most common ones. If it’s Anjou, that’s another point in favor of Chinon. Rittenhouse would want to make sure Berengaria dies discreetly and can’t interfere, or lodge a complaint with the Pope, or her brother, the king of Navarre. Scorned royal wives do have a few options for justice, though that hasn’t helped Ingeborg.”

“Ingeborg?”

“Philip’s second wife,” Flynn explains. “Ingeborg of Denmark. He married her a few years ago, in 1193, then immediately and bizarrely rejected her the next morning. He’s currently keeping her locked up in a tower, and he fights the Pope for years refusing to take her back. Even gets all of France put under interdict. She’s finally restored, but not for twenty years.”

“What?” Lucy is outraged. She can’t say she liked Philip, exactly – he was too cold and calculating for that, too manipulative and obsessive – but this is certainly not doing much for her opinion of the guy. “That’s – where is Ingeborg? We should rescue her.”

Flynn gives her a wry little smile, as if he loves the fact that her first instinct is to charge in like a white knight and save an unjustly mistreated historical lady, even if there is no conceivable connection to their current mission. “I don’t know where she is right now,” he says. “She was at a convent in Soissons, but I don’t think she’s still there. Besides, we might have enough on our hands with saving Berengaria.”

“What happens to her?” Lucy asks. “After Richard dies. Does she remarry too?”

“No.” Flynn glances ahead a little too carefully, as if this question of whether a widowed spouse deciding, or not deciding, to move on is strictly academic, or at least he’ll pretend it is. “She outlives him by about thirty years, she never marries again. John isn’t very good at paying for her maintenance, and the Pope badgers him about it on various occasions. In 1204, Philip gives the city of Le Mans to her after she relinquishes her Norman dower properties to him, so she settles there. It’s a lonely existence for a discarded queen with no son to become king or look after her. Not much money, either. But it’s what she does.”

“But surely she could have married again,” Lucy persists. “She’s still the sister of the king of Navarre, isn’t that what you said? That makes her an eligible match, and she can’t be that old. A new husband would at least take care of her, and plenty of widowed noblewomen married more than once.”

“She could have,” Flynn says, after a slight pause. “For whatever reason, she didn’t. Perhaps she really loved Richard, despite all his flaws, and didn’t want to think that any mortal man could take the Lionheart’s place. Maybe her independence as a widow was worth more to her than money. Unless you want to ask her if we meet her, we won’t know.”

“But – ” Lucy doesn’t know how to put this without making it uncomfortably clear that they might not be talking about Berengaria anymore. God, and this was supposed to be a safe avenue of conversation. Finally she says, “From what we’ve seen, Richard has a lot of admirable qualities, but being a great husband isn’t one of them. Did she – could she really love him that much that there just wouldn’t be anyone else, for thirty years afterward?”

“Love doesn’t really enter into medieval marriages,” Flynn points out. “A bit more among the commoners, yes, but for the king and the aristocracy, it’s a business arrangement, for an alliance or for money or for consolidating or claiming territories. That’s part of the reason most kings have mistresses. They’re not really expected to owe emotional or sexual fidelity to their wives, though of course their wives don’t get the same freedom. Berengaria might have had to marry again if her brother forced her, but he doesn’t.  So I suppose no. She never found anyone she loved or wanted enough to do it for its own sake.”

Lucy doesn’t answer. There’s a strange kind of grief in her chest that is for Berengaria, and isn’t, and it’s mixed up and sharp-edged and painful. Even if they save Berengaria from getting unceremoniously murdered by Rittenhouse, there’s still no guarantee that Richard will take her back again, or that she won’t end up even more alone than she does. There are so many women in history who get forgotten or overlooked or mistreated or simply ignored, who are much less fortunate than Berengaria – at least history knows her name and who she was. It just isn’t fair. It isn’t fair.

(There are other things that don’t seem entirely fair either, but that’s beside the point.)

They fall silent for the rest of the ride to Poitiers. The sun’s up, it’s morning and the gates are open, so they don’t need to bribe or bash their way through, but they need to get back to the castle. Emma might have figured out that they’re gone, and they also need to ensure what’s going on with Wyatt and Rufus. They canter quickly through the streets, almost aristocratic in their disregard for public rights of way; if it’s there, they take it. Finally, they reach the castle and hurry inside, unable to shake the fear that Emma might be watching from the gatehouse. She has no reason to suspect them, right? Assumed they stayed in the tower room with Wyatt and Rufus? It would be nice to think so, but she’s a formidable and terrifying adversary, and any underestimation whatsoever could easily be lethal. Maybe they can pretend they were just out for a nice breakfast jaunt.

Lucy and Flynn ride into the castle and dismount in the courtyard, at which point Lucy spots a guard across the way who seems to be staring at them a little too intently. It is entirely possible that he’s just surprised to see them back for any number of reasons, or he missed the memo about Prince Ali and his weird friends arriving yesterday, but if he is in fact Rittenhouse and is waiting to report to Emma, they need to throw him off the scent. Lucy turns around and giggles at Flynn, as if he’s just said something funny, and while he is looking confused, tilts her head halfway at the guard, indicating that they’re being watched. Then, before Flynn can look around and make it obvious, Lucy stands on her tiptoes, grabs him by the tunic (it’s necessary to get his head to her level), and kisses him.

She has no idea what the protocol is about PDA in the medieval world, but she’s pretty sure they’re not Puritans (and the Puritans themselves banged like crazy, just where they hoped no one could see them). Lucy remembers her colleague Eleanor, back at Stanford, telling her about a genre of Old French poems known as _fabliaux_ , which feature an extremely healthy amount of sex; indeed, they’re so bawdy that their titles can’t really be said aloud to an undergraduate class. There are also poems called pastourelles, which likewise involve what the people want, literally (albeit with a lot of misogyny, because that, as noted, is history for you). Plus the literature of “courtly love,” often sponsored by and written for powerful noblewomen, tends to horrify the clerical moralists who think it promotes adultery. The point is – medieval people have a robust appreciation of the beast with two backs, draw lewd figures with huge genitalia in the margins of their manuscripts and tapestries, and otherwise are not about to faint at the sight of two presumably married people macking on each other. Not that it’s not macking. It is a dry, swift, timid kiss that almost misses Flynn’s mouth, and Lucy is pulling away before it can let itself be anything else. “Come on,” she says, too breathless. “Let’s find Wyatt and Rufus.”

Flynn looks like he’s been hit by a two-by-four. It’s not clear if he heard a word she just said, because every single bit of his available brainpower is engaged in vainly struggling to pretend that this is an entirely normal, everyday occurrence in his life and that he knows exactly how to deal with it. Lucy can almost smell the burnt wiring, and she’s pretty sure he abjectly fails. Then finally he says, hoarsely and much too belatedly, “Yes. Let’s.”


	8. Chapter 8

This has not been the most enjoyable night of Wyatt Logan’s life. In fact, it’s one of the worst, and considering how stupid it’s been recently, that’s saying a lot. First, the only thing less enjoyable than having a bullet dug out of your gut with medieval hardware store tools is getting to lie there for eight hours, completely sans morphine or even a goddamn Tylenol, feeling it throb with every heartbeat. Next, your only company is your friend who is still kind of mad at you, but isn’t enjoying watching you suffer, and who can’t go out to get liquid comfort in case he’s abruptly murdered by members of the cult you are chasing through Medieval Times Dinner Theater. And when your ex-girlfriend and your – fuck if he knows what Flynn is – are trying to stop said cult’s leader from doing anything bad like killing your wife version 2.0, and you don’t know when _they’re_ coming back, or what’s going on, because the frigging Pony Express would be an upgrade…

Yeah. Wyatt thinks he’s earned a little bitterness.

He lies on his back, since he can’t exactly lie anywhere else, trying not to breathe too deeply. He’s a soldier, he’s been messed up in pretty gnarly ways before, and if nothing else, he’s always been used to pain. You can thank his dad for that. Wyatt can feel every single one of Flynn’s careful stitches, holding his side together with silk embroidery thread, and to his bafflement and disquiet, he keeps catching himself worrying about Flynn in the same way he’s worrying about Lucy. Not _quite_ in the same way, but… not altogether different, either. Despite the chronic bickering, they’ve worked together since getting here, and Flynn has now saved his bacon twice. Once after the Lifeboat wrecked, and again with this. Kind of rattles his pessimistic presumption that if it came down to it, Flynn would still let all of them (aside from Lucy) die at the first chance.

In the back of his head, Wyatt wonders if that’s entirely true, if that’s what he really thinks, since he’s gotten used to having Flynn around and hasn’t actively wanted to kill him for… well, a while now. Has had to trust him in tight spots, worked with him on the mission to save Rufus, even had a beer with him when they got back, sweaty and grimy and exultant. In fact, there have been a couple moments where Wyatt thinks they might almost be friends, and he… he’s wanted it. And yet, since getting close to Flynn always feels like a terrible idea and Wyatt has several reasons to avoid it, he hasn’t said so overtly or made any real indication that he does anything apart from still 100% hate him. He’s reminded himself that Flynn's involvement (aside, again, from Lucy) is entirely strategic. The team is fighting Rittenhouse, it’s easier to do that with them than alone. Definitely better than jail. That’s all.

(Wyatt does know that this is a complete crock of shit, but emotions have gone really horribly for him recently. It’s better to take refuge in a few delusions, pretend that things are still simple, pretend that he hasn’t changed, when frankly, more than anything else, even painkillers, he wants Flynn and Lucy to come back. Both of them.)

He and Rufus do not talk much. Rufus dozes sporadically on the whatever-the-medieval-couch is called, a low, armless padded bench, though he keeps lifting his head whenever footsteps go past outside. Nobody tries to force the door, which is good, given as they’re completely unarmed after Wyatt sent his gun off with Lucy. Finally in the wee hours, when it’s become apparent that neither of them are going to get much sleep, Wyatt says, “I’m sorry. That I tried to lie to the others at dinner. About Emma.”

Rufus shifts position, rolling over onto his back. Even if obviously better than a gunshot wound, the couch thing (settee? Why does Wyatt want to say settee?) doesn’t look like luxury accommodation. It’s clear that he is weighing how to respond, is not going to instantly lie and pretend it’s fine. Finally he says, “I guess I’m just wondering if we would have been friends if this wasn’t our job. I don’t even mean that as a diss. But I’m an engineer and a nerd and a black kid from the West Side of Chicago who went to MIT, and you’re a redneck military white boy from Texas. It just feels like if it wasn’t our responsibility to save literally all of the known universe on a weekly basis, we wouldn’t have much in common.”

Wyatt opens his mouth, then shuts it. He wants to ask if Rufus really has to kick him while he’s down, but that’s the thing he does where he takes what someone is saying about their pain and makes it about his own, and he’s trying, he’s _trying,_ to be less of a tragedy in that department. “Rufus, if this is about Chinatown, about Jiya… I know it was because of me that Jess was in the bunker and all of that happened, and I guess… it’s a lot to ask you to forgive me for. If you want to just be teammates and that’s it, I – I get it.”

There’s a pause. Wyatt stares miserably at the dim ceiling, thinking that he’s totally whiffed it with the other two, why not Rufus too? They can be the new threesome who are friends and family, and he can be the shunned, fuckup outsider looking in the window but not part of the house, the position he keeps putting Flynn in for comfort’s sake but which more accurately belongs to him. His loneliness hollows out the core of him, makes him feel as bleak and desolate as an abandoned ruin (all the ruins in their modern time probably haven’t even been built yet). “I’m sorry,” he repeats hopelessly, into the silence. “I’m sorry.”

“Look,” Rufus says. “Being dead sucked. At least I think it did, because – consciously, at any rate – I don’t actually remember it. After all, you and Flynn and Jiya saved me before it happened. I know that in your first timeline, I died, and you got visited by Lara Croft and an extra on the _Walking Dead,_ and figured out how to work it around for another try. But you remember that happening, and I don’t. And that’s because you saved my life. Yes, I am still pissed about some things, I’m not gonna lie. But you know what? Honestly, it doesn’t matter a crap whether we would have been friends in another life or not. This is the one we ended up in, and we _are_ friends. At least I think we are. You can disagree.”

“I – ” Wyatt blinks hard, tasting tears in the back of his throat. “No. No, I don’t. I’m just sorry I’ve been such a monumental screwup and I’ve hurt all of you and I kept doing it as a reflex instead of trusting you. I have a lot of humble pie to eat and… I just need to make sure I actually try to goddamn do that.”

“That’s all any of us can do,” Rufus says. “Even when time travel isn’t involved.”

“Yeah.” Wyatt grimaces as a bolt of lightning spears his side. “If you want to punch me in the face or stick my head in the toilet or whatever other dumb dude stuff we have to go through to make it up, just – wait until I can stand up on my own, all right?”

“No thanks,” Rufus says. “Because as you said, it’s dumb. You definitely owe me a proper dinner when we get back to the twenty-first century, though.”

“If we get out of here, I’ll buy you literally whatever you want.” Dining out might be a little complicated at the moment, but it’s the thought of just being able to do ordinary real-life things like that again, instead of being on house arrest in a succession of government bunkers and anonymous safe houses, that sends a pang through Wyatt’s abused chest. “Cool?”

“Cool.” Rufus sits up, gets to his feet, and walks over to the bed, holding out his hand, and they do as much of a bro-shake as Wyatt is functionally able to manage. It still hurts anyway, but he manages to ignore it for a while longer. Rufus goes back to the settee, they both doze off, and by morning, when they haven’t been murdered, aren’t sure whether to be relieved about that or worried about Lucy and Flynn. There’s no way to say how long that was going to take, when they should expect them back, or if they’d even know if something went wrong. In a slightly too-cheery voice, Rufus says, “Think they have continental breakfast?”

“I’m guessing no.” Wyatt can’t tell if he’s hungry or not; the thought of food is nice, but the effort required to eat it would probably make him puke. He also has a killer need to take a piss, but doesn’t want to make Rufus have to help him with that. “Maybe you can go look, though? See what’s going on in the castle, what people are saying?”

“I suppose.” Rufus is aware that they’re not supposed to leave this room until the others return, but he hesitates a moment longer and then says, “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Don’t try to go Superman on me or anything like that.”

“Yeah. Not gonna be a problem.”

Rufus raises an eyebrow, as if to say that he had to make sure, then pulls the bar out of the door and vanishes through it. Once he’s gone, Wyatt slowly staggers to his feet, and by dint of a clever trick (profuse and repeated use of the f-word in noun, verb, gerund, adjectival, and emphatic forms), manages to pee without killing himself. He peels away the knotted, blood-crusted tablecloth, trying to see if the wound looks infected, though there’s not a hell of a lot he can do if it is. It’s red and swollen and otherwise unhappy anyway, he can’t really tell. He’s glad Eleanor isn’t dead, he really is, but God. They definitely owe him a get-well fruit basket. Or maybe a knighthood.

Wyatt eases himself back down onto the bed, breathing hard. He has just gotten (not) comfortable when the door opens again. Rufus reappears, trailed by a grimy, tired, frowning Lucy, and a grimy, tired, stunned-looking Flynn. Wyatt bolts upright, swears again, and falls on the bolster pillows, but he doesn’t even care. “Oh my God,” he says. “I’m – thank God. Thank God. I’m so relieved you made it back.”

“You’re not going to be in a second.” Lucy looks at him with a foreboding expression. “We did catch up to Emma, and we even know what she’s doing, we think. But it – it’s bad, and you aren’t going to like hearing it. I’m sorry.”

“Oh?” Wyatt wonders what exactly can be worse than – well, everything, but tries to brace himself. “What are we talking, or do I really want to know?”

By the time Lucy has filled him and Rufus in on the latest terrible development (Flynn has continued to look like he’s been concussed the entire time, making Wyatt briefly worry that maybe he was hurt, and then have absolutely no idea what to do with that), Wyatt has concluded that maybe he didn’t. “Fuck,” he says. _“Thirty_ Rittenhouse agents? And Emma brought Jess _here?_ To marry Richard and use my kid to – the _fuck?”_

“I’m sorry,” Lucy says again. She sits down on the bed next to him, putting her hand next to his, but not quite taking it. “It’s – it’s diabolical, honestly. It makes plenty of sense for her, and it might be something Richard could see his way into accepting, but… neither you or even Jessica deserve this.”

Wyatt doesn’t know how to respond. His old instinct to lash out at them and defend Jessica’s honor is clearly not going to fly, and he doesn’t feel that he should. As they all keep saying, she’s chosen her allegiances, but – even for the sake of an organization that this version of her remembers as being part of since childhood, that saved her brother and whatever else – is she really willing to barter her kid, _their_ kid, off like this? To choose between staying in the twelfth/thirteenth century with him for the rest of her life, or going back to the present as a faithful Rittenhouse disciple, having proved her bona fides, and never seeing him again?

(Wyatt supposes the takeaway from this is that he is in fact having a son. A son he’s probably never going to meet. A son who will live his entire life as Rittenhouse’s pawn to change the world, who will think that this time is his own. He’ll get to be a king – is that going to make it worth it? Make any of this worth it?)

(The thought hurts even worse than his perforated side, and he doesn’t think it ever won’t.)

There’s a pause as Rufus, Lucy, and Flynn all avoid looking at him, as Wyatt thinks grimly that yet again, his mistakes are here to bite them in the ass. Then he swallows his pride and decides to give this a try. “Okay, Flynn. What do we do?”

No answer.

“Hey. Flynn?”

“Sorry.” Flynn blinks hard, rubbing a hand over his face. “What?”

“Dude,” Rufus says. “Wyatt just asked you what you thought we should do, and you missed it? You must _really_ be distracted.”

“I – oh.” Flynn doesn’t take the tailor-made opportunity to gloat, which is equally astounding. Wyatt glances at him in confusion, then notices that Lucy is maintaining a slightly too-casual expression herself, and feels as if he’s missed a step going downstairs. This is definitely not the time to wonder if anything happened while they were out on their overnight excursion, but even more unsettling is the fact that he isn’t sure if it’s just the obvious part of that (Lucy with Flynn) which bothers him. Or if it’s also somehow the –

Right, no, never mind that, back the truck up, up, up. Besides, Wyatt is still working on accepting that things have been broken and may not get put back together. After all the time he’s spent with broken – well, everything, you’d think this would be easier, but it isn’t. Flynn still seems too discombobulated to put together a substantial response, until Rufus is finally the one to chime in instead. “You two know where the Mothership is, right? Can’t we just go steal it? I know we can’t all go home with thirty frigging Rittenhouse agents here, but I could take Wyatt to a real hospital, and then come back to join Flynn and Lucy.”

“There’s no way Wyatt could manage a ride all the way there,” Flynn says. “The wound would open and he’d bleed to death before we got close. Besides, if we leave Wyatt in the present by himself in some hospital, how do we know Rittenhouse doesn’t just go in and pick him off? He’d be a sitting duck.”

Wyatt starts to say something, then stops. Not least because Flynn has voiced explicit concern for his well-being (twice!), and he is, yet again, not prepared to deal with that. At last he says, “I don’t want to split up except as a total last resort. Besides, if we make any move for the Mothership, that blows our cover and Emma realizes we’re onto her and her entire plan. We only have one shot at getting to it while she doesn’t know – yet – that we know where it is or what she was doing with it, and yeah. This eats a huge amount of ass right now. I’m not going to say it’s fun. But I’m not gonna let you blow that shot for me.”

Lucy glances at him, her expression troubled and tender. “Wyatt, we have to take care of you. You’re still part of the team.”

 _If nothing else?_ Wyatt doesn’t want to ask that, or know how she might answer. Delusions, after all. Kinda wants to hold onto a few, after reality has bitch-slapped him on both cheeks and taken a dump in his front yard. “Yeah,” he says, “but I think we’ll also agree that you’re all tired of me fucking up things for you. Don’t make me do it again. Okay?”

“Okay,” Flynn says. Yet again, refraining from any of the obvious cracks that are there to be made, which is just bizarre. (Or perhaps not at all, but Wyatt’s still not going there.) “Though either way, we’re probably going somewhere. I said they’re most likely taking Jessica to Chinon, and Emma will tell Richard to meet her there. So some of us will need to go.”

“I can’t ride, obviously,” Wyatt says, as neutrally as possible. “That seems to rule me out.”

“It’s your wife and child.” Flynn looks at him with an intensity that Wyatt can feel to the back of his spine. “That Rittenhouse wants to use for their own sick little game. Don’t tell me you’re content to do nothing about it.”

“Of course I’m not fucking _content_.” Wyatt wants to be more emphatic, wants to shout about this, wants to kick up more of a fuss, but his chest feels pulverized (in more ways than one) and the most he can manage is a croak. “Of course I don’t want this to happen. I never wanted any of this to happen. But I’m half-dead and I would definitely get all the way there if I rushed after Jessica right now, to – what? Get my heart stomped on all over again? Can I save her if she doesn’t want to be saved? I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I’ve tried to do that for years, since I joined the damn team in the first place, and we can safely say that I have totally blown it. Maybe this is what I deserve, I don’t know.”

“Yes,” Flynn says. “You’ve totally blown it. But you’re not the only one who has, eh?”

Wyatt blinks. He doesn’t know what the hell has gotten into Flynn, why he keeps saving his life and then worrying about it later and saying these things that almost sound like clumsy olive branches, and once again, he thinks it’s better not to ask. There’s another silence. Then Rufus says, “Just spitballing here. But is there anything to be said for the nuclear option? Say fuck it, tell Richard we’re time travelers, and that’s why he can’t remarry? I mean, he’s got his thing going on with Andrew, he doesn’t really want to shake that up, right?”

Flynn raises both eyebrows, but charitably restrains from comment. Then he says, “What? Tell Richard that he has to die without a son, to fail in the central duty of a king, to leave his throne to his little brother with whom he has, at best, an ambivalent relationship? That John then proceeds to arse it up to such a degree that it becomes enshrined in law for hundreds of years? I can guarantee that is not something Richard would have any interest in facilitating, and if we tell him that, we have to tell him his future. Tell him when he dies, and how. Which he would then obviously try to avoid, messing up history still further.”

“Yeah,” Rufus says. “Since you’ve always been the one of us who’s really concerned with preserving history, Flynn. I can absolutely see why you’d suggest that.”

Flynn seems to sense that he deserves that, and gives a _sue me_ shrug instead of answering. Then Lucy says, “We could just not tell him that part. Right? Even if he asked – ”

“Do _you_ want to be the one that says no to him?” Flynn asks. “Spill the beans that you know everything that’s going to happen in his life and after it, and then refuse to tell him? We’d get into even worse of a mess. Besides, if we come clean about that, we’d also have to tell him that we came from Paris and Philip sent us. And while he might laugh off the time travel, or not bother taking us seriously, I can assure you that he would not do the same when it comes to Philip. They hate each other past all reason, and if we get Richard angry at us…”

“Wild guess,” Rufus says. “We won’t like him when he’s angry?”

“Not in the least.” Flynn leans against the wall, eyes darting to Wyatt, then back to Rufus. He seems to be avoiding looking at Lucy if remotely possible, even when talking to her earlier. “He’ll kill us if he finds out that we’re supposed to be spying for Philip, and he’s not going to buy any pleas of having our arms twisted.”

“But he’s obviously going to notice that – sorry, Wyatt, but still – Jess is pregnant,” Rufus persists. “Aren’t they really into bloodlines and legitimacy and all that? He’s just going to accept some random Jon Snow as his heir, especially when he knows he is NOT the daddy? I mean, it’s not like they have Maury here, but it seems like an issue.”

“I don’t know,” Flynn says. “He might take it as a backup option. Or he might think that he just needs a son born to his wife and isn’t too particular about how he gets one. Emma could have already told him about it, assured him it’ll be a boy and promised he doesn’t need to end his relationship with Andrew if he doesn’t want to. If nothing else, it’s proof that Jessica could have more children, especially since Berengaria hasn’t had any. I have no idea where they’ve told him that she’s from, what she’s the princess or countess of, but I assume they’ve made it worth his while in plenty of ways. They could tell him what Philip’s going to do, treat him with modern medicine so he doesn’t die when he’s shot – anything, really.”

Wyatt grimaces. This may be an operationally necessary topic of conversation, but he still doesn’t want to hear it. “So what, Richard’s flirting with Flynn and now he’s gonna marry Jessica and steal my kid? The fuck? What gives?”

There’s a slightly too-long pause. Then Rufus raises both eyebrows. “Dude, I get why you’re upset about the latter, but… why the former, exactly?”

“I – ” Wyatt opens his mouth, keeps it that way, and then shakes his head. “Look, so, what are we doing?”

“I’ll go see if I can talk to Richard,” Flynn says. “I need to find out if Emma’s tried to approach him and what she’s said, and if there are any plans afoot to send the court to Chinon. He’s grateful to us for saving Eleanor’s life, so – ”

“You mean me, right?” Wyatt points out. “Still the one who got shot here.”

Flynn rolls his eyes. “Yes, Logan, we’re all grateful for the sacrifice. Anyway, I’ll try to leverage that. You three, don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.”

With that, sounding very much like the stern school principal or exasperated father who is sick of these motherfucking Rittenhouse agents on this motherfucking field trip, Flynn whirls around and heads out. Rufus notes that he didn’t actually find any food earlier, and excuses himself as well. That leaves Wyatt and Lucy, who is still sitting on the bed next to him, though she glances away when he looks at her. The silence is not horrendously awkward, but it’s a long way from comfortable. Finally Lucy says quietly, “I’m sorry about Jessica. It just seems like that wound never gets to close, does it?”

“Guess so.” Wyatt blows out a jagged breath. “I suppose it makes sense as a plot for Emma. And Jess – I don’t know what she thinks about this. I was a shitty husband to her in any reality, so no wonder Rittenhouse feels like home. That they’ve given her what I couldn’t and didn’t, even though I wanted to. I don’t know if we’re ever going to be together again, but I just wish…” He trails off. “A son. I’m having a son. I used to think about that, what that would be like. Playing catch with him, having buddy fishing weekends, going to his parent-teacher conferences, teaching him about cars, all the stuff I was going to do and not screw up like my old man. I don’t even know if I could manage that now. It’s like half of me thinks it might be better for him if he grows up here and gets to be some medieval king, rather than have me as a dad. How fucked up is that?”

Lucy bites her lip, then looks at him full-on for the first time. “I don’t think so,” she says. “I don’t think that would be better. Not just because of messing up history, but because you deserve the chance to know your son, and I’m going to help you fight for it. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Jessica, but if she’s still what you want – ”

“I don’t know.” Wyatt stares at the ceiling. So long so determined to get his wife back by hook or by crook, convinced it would fix all his problems, and it’s only made everything worse. “I – meant what I said to you, Lucy. It’s just… it occurs to me it wasn’t a good time to say it, and it wasn’t what you needed to hear right then, and maybe I’ve screwed up things too far to ever really be fixed. So if you want to say something to me about that now, I’m listening.” He waves a hand and grunts in pain. “Can’t exactly get away.”

“Yeah.” Lucy lets out a breath of her own. “I don’t know either. You – you did hurt me. I can’t say I want to rush back into anything. Actually, I – ” She stops. “Never mind.”

“No,” Wyatt says. “Come on. I want us to be friends again, I want us to start talking to each other about things. I swear, you can tell me.”

Lucy looks at him as if she’s not really sure that she can, and the simple, painful realization that the trust between them has been broken, that he can ask but he has to be all right with it if she doesn’t answer, twists in Wyatt’s gut in a different way than the blacksmith’s pincers. He can’t push, that’s counterproductive, but he tries to think of a way to keep the conversation going, rather than cut it off full stop. “Okay, can you maybe tell me the reason why not?”

“You don’t – ” Lucy looks down at her fingers twisted in her lap. “You don’t take it well.”

Wyatt supposes that this doesn’t really narrow it down, alas, as he hasn’t exactly handled anything well in the recent past. However, he has an inkling what it might be, and while they’re being honest, maybe they should give it a try. “Is it about Flynn?”

Lucy tenses, shifting away from him, as if in clear preparation to be yelled at. Then she says, purposefully casual, “Yes, it’s about Flynn.”

“Okay.” Wyatt thinks that literally any way he’s ever reacted to this topic in the past, it’s probably wrong, and he should try something else. “I’m – look, him and me have had our thing, and it’s been what it is, but he’s saved my life twice now. I guess I can see why you trust him, and he’s been a big help. He still likes kicking my ass a lot, though.”

“That’s just how he is.” A small, fond, private smile turns up Lucy’s mouth, clearly summoned just by the thought of the team’s large garbage fourth party, and Wyatt struggles not to let it sting. “I just – I like him, Wyatt. I like him, and I want him around, and he’s proven himself as much as you or me or Rufus or Jiya or any of us. So if it’s just about you not trusting him, I think that’s settled. More than settled.”

“I do trust him.” It’s not easy, but Wyatt decides it probably should be said. “I don’t _like_ him, but I trust him.” He doesn’t want to go so far as apologizing for being a dick to Flynn, since he feels like Flynn invites and eagerly reciprocates at least seventy-five percent of it, but he looks up at Lucy. “I promise, I’ll try to quit sniping at him as much. But if he starts it – ”

“I wouldn’t tell you not to defend your honor.” Lucy rolls her eyes, but laughs a little, and it feels like one of the first genuine moments they’ve had in a while. Not even in a romantic sense, but just as two people who are familiar with each other and are stuck doing a dangerous job with a difficult coworker, who can commiserate on equal footing and try to shut out everything else for a while. “I know he’s… a handful.”

“You seem to manage him pretty well.” Wyatt wants to bite his tongue, but it slips out anyway. “I mean. Never have any trouble getting him to listen to _you.”_

Lucy’s cheeks go rather pink, and she looks down at her hands again, that same shy smile paying a return visit to her lips. “That’s different.”

Yes, Wyatt supposes, it is. He glances up at her with a crooked smile, doing his best to play the role of a friend elbowing another friend about a crush, an _aw-come-on-you-like-him_ sort of thing. He doesn’t have the heart to commit to it, but at least he can put up the appearance. Fake it ‘til you make it, and because Lucy deserves something else from him on this topic apart from condescension and critique and shame. Finally he says, “You think Rufus is going to come back with breakfast? I could maybe eat something.”

“Hopefully.” Lucy gets off the bed and goes to peer out the window. “Well, nothing’s on fire yet, so maybe Flynn and Emma haven’t come face to face.”

“Always a good thing,” Wyatt cracks weakly. His side is starting to really hurt again, and his flash of appetite is deserting him as fast as it’s come. He feels nauseous, and puts his head back down on the pillow. Well then. He fondly fancies that maybe he didn’t completely blow that conversation. Where it’s going to go, or how, or why, he’s given up speculating. Not dying is top of his priority list right now. The rest of it can wait.

(He is also thinking about when Flynn is going to get back, and whether he’s run into Emma or any of the new Rittenhouse gang, and what he’s said to Richard, and any of it. But that also feels like something that he would definitely prefer to delay.)

* * *

It takes Flynn a while, especially when his head is still going in wild vortexes and he needs to struggle an alarming amount to maintain the keen and razor-focused competence that he is generally known for, to track down Richard. He eventually finds the king just getting up (it’s midmorning, so Richard was definitely not springing out of bed with the lark to attend Mass at six AM) and not terribly interested in being bothered with business first thing. He is also clearly annoyed with Flynn’s lack of proper deference. “What exactly are you doing here, Garcia? Is it the custom in Spain to burst in on the royal presence unannounced?”

“Sorry, Your Grace.” Flynn inclines his head, hoping that Andrew de Chauvigny will not choose this moment to make his entrance and be even less enthused to find him in Richard’s private chambers at a still-unsociably-early hour. “How is your mother?”

“My mother is quite well, and if you really were interested in enquiring after her health, you would have burdened yourself elsewhere.” Richard whirls on his heel, pouring a cup of morning wine from the decanter. His hair is tumbled in his eyes, he’s only wearing a dressing gown and loose braies, and despite his protestations, he doesn’t seem entirely averse to Flynn glimpsing him in this less-than-regal state of dishabille. He sits on the unmade bed, stretching his long legs, and enjoys a few sips, with the kingly prerogative to make Flynn stand there and wait until he’s ready to continue the conversation. Then he says, “Your serving man isn’t dead either, I take it?”

“No, he made it through the night. Not very comfortably, but he’s alive.” Flynn hesitates. He doesn’t suspect that Richard is at all concerned about the well-being of servants in the ordinary course of things, and tries to think how to gently nudge the conversation from here. He knows that it’s only Richard’s – well, whatever notice he’s taken of him, of whatever sort, that is the reason he’s still here, and the king has not called his guards to remove this unwashed interloper until later. Much later, possibly. “Last night, what my wife told you and the queen about the assassins’ guild, Rittenhouse. Their leader, the woman called Emma – I don’t know if she’s approached you. But if she – ”

Richard gazes back at him inscrutably, until Flynn realizes that if Emma has, she may also have warned him that people might be asking about it, and to keep it appropriately on the DL until he has come to a decision. Probably with plenty of flattery. Richard is not the kind of man who appreciates criticism, constructive or otherwise, and if Flynn pushes him too hard into thinking he’s made a mistake entertaining Emma’s overtures, he might double down on them, just because. Still, Flynn feels the need to emphasize it. “Emma’s men are the ones who organized the attempt on your mother’s life. She wants you to marry again for reasons of her own, and you – you can’t trust her.”

“Even if any of that was true.” Richard finishes off the wine and puts the goblet back on the sideboard, then stands up. “Do you have any shred of proof?”

This was always going to be tricky. “No.”

“So how would you know that?” Richard stares at Flynn with a narrow, shrewd expression that makes it clear that no matter if Flynn has caught his eye or not, he is not going to be swayed into overlooking any other suspicions he has about them. “My mother said to me last night that she doesn’t believe you’re really from Spain, and I must say, I’m starting to agree with her. You don’t speak French like anyone I’ve ever met, for a start, and that weapon – ” He points to the Rittenhouse assassin’s Glock, which is lying on his desk, looking jarringly out of place among the charters covered in gothic script, waxen seals, daggers, quills, inkhorns, melted candles, and rolls of parchment. “I took it apart and looked at it, and I see no receptacle for Greek fire, which _was_ how you said it operated. It’s much more advanced than the crossbow, and I can _damn_ well promise that I would remember if the Saracens had been shooting at us with this thing while I was in the Holy Land. Where did you get it from? Who sent you?”

Flynn fights the urge to take a step back. To say the least, it’s the rare man that can intimidate him, physically or verbally, and that’s not even quite what’s going on here. But the Angevins of Richard’s paternal line are colorfully rumoured to be descended from the Devil’s daughter Melusine, for reasons of their hair and tempers, which are equally blazing. Richard’s father Henry used this legend to great effect, and Richard himself is extremely fond of it, telling the story to anyone who ever doubts his ability to cosmically fuck them up. But so far as Flynn remembers, there always came a moment when, faced with an angry Plantagenet, everyone started being pretty sure that it was not just a tall tale. As well, this is only an irritated Richard, not an angry one. Flynn himself was warning everyone about that. He needs to be very careful.

“Your Grace,” Flynn starts at last. “That is… a long story.”

Richard stares at him cuttingly, deeply unimpressed by this non-answer. “Yes, Garcia. I gathered that. Or are you several poxy halfwits cunningly disguised as a man?”

Well, Flynn supposes, that was feeble enough for him to deserve that. It occurs to him, ludicrously, to actually give the time-travel thing a try. He’s hardly been the most close-mouthed about that fact in the past, and witchcraft panics (and the attendant stake-burning, though that’s also a massively overstated stereotype) are an early modern phenomenon, not a medieval one. Heretics don’t even get the burning treatment until after 1400, in the run-up to the Reformation. Richard is religious, as everyone is in some way or form, and he is a crusader who believes deeply that the Christians are entitled to reclaim Jerusalem, but he formed real friendships with his Muslim counterparts and has made laws to protect his Jewish subjects, as well as repeatedly objecting to the crusade’s religious philosophy when it clashed with his thoroughgoingly pragmatic view of things. In other words, religious bigotry or baseless zealotry is not really in his nature; he is interested in how things work on a tactical and strategic level, and doesn’t have time for irrationality or hysteria or incompetence. Flynn says, “I don’t think you’d believe me, Your Grace.”

“Wouldn’t I?” Richard raises both eyebrows. “Your Saracen friend, Prince Ali, the one you said was an acquaintance of Saif al-Din. Where is Agrabah, exactly? It was never mentioned in any of my negotiations with the sultan’s brother or his advisors.”

Flynn winces. As he also seems to recall warning the others, Richard is much too smart to be easily manipulated, and their cover stories have been flimsy at best. Oh, what the hell. “We’re… travelers, Your Grace. From… well.” For once, he actually doesn’t want to be the one to do this, but needs must. “From the future.”

There is a long and very hideous pause. Then Richard bursts out laughing. “Travelers from the future? So you’re lunatics, you mean? Or are you from a traveling fair, one of those charlatans who promise to tell fortunes for a silver penny and get burning bushes to speak with the voices of saints and angels? You remind me of that venerable padre back in Messina, Joachim of Fiore. He was very keen to prophesy that my crusade would be a great success and usher in the fiery advent of the Last Days and the judgment of the faithful, along with various other dramatic mumbling that I misremember. To say the least, he was wrong, but it did earn his abbey a generous reward. Is that what you want? Money?”

“We don’t want money, my lord.” Flynn supposes this is a reasonable interpretation for Richard to take, but it’s also not helping them very much. “I don’t expect you to believe me, but it is the truth.”

Richard snorts. “You struck me as a sensible man, Garcia. Even if you were traipsing about with a woman, a Saracen, and a blockhead. Why disappoint me in such a fashion now?”

“I…” Flynn tries to think of something he could say to convince Richard, while wondering if he actually wants to do that, and if revealing any information at all could in fact get them (once again, as warned) into more trouble. “It’s just – it’s important that you don’t remarry, and especially not to the woman that Rittenhouse has chosen for you. That’s all.”

Richard regards him inscrutably. “My wife has not given me a son. That being the case – ”

“And have you tried very hard for her to do that, my lord?” Flynn is starting to push it here, but he’s in too far to turn back now. “I’ve heard certain… rumors of your conduct, both now and in the past. If you remain estranged from Queen Berengaria, surely that gives them cause to proliferate? Surely if you were to recall her to your side and – ”

Richard’s nostrils flare. In the original timeline, he was shamed into reconciling with Berengaria after a serious illness led him to reflect on his sinful conduct and hastily abjure it for the good of his soul, but unless they poison him (which, to say the least, is a _terrible_ idea), it’s less clear if he has the same incentive now. In a very dangerous voice, he says, “What exactly are you accusing me of, Garcia? I suggest you choose your words _most_ carefully.”

“I…” Obviously, as a modern man who has a certain perspective on this, and who has batted for the same team a few times himself, Flynn’s natural instinct is to tell Richard that there’s nothing wrong with him, and the church should shut up about the thrall of guilt and terror it exerts on him and others like him. Wants to say that he knows Richard and Andrew love each other and should be allowed to stay together. But while Richard is relatively open about his preferences, or at least habitually returns to them after brief episodes of public repentance, that does not translate into unconditionally accepting them. He views sodomy as a venial sin like any other, to which he seems unfortunately prone, and certainly not as an orientation or a legitimate way of life. Even if Flynn gets out his inner pride flag and tells Richard that in the words of one Stefani Germanotta, he was born this way, that will go directly against everything Richard has heard all his life, that he has taken to heart and believes about himself, and it’s not clear that he would appreciate it. Flynn isn’t going to call him a dirty gay, obviously, but how the hell does he do this?

When Flynn doesn’t answer, Richard seems more or less satisfied that he’s won the argument, but continues to stare at him in a way that makes it clear the subject has not been dropped. Then Richard says, “You’ve amused me thus far, Garcia, and as I said, I’m grateful for what your man did for my mother. But I get enough damned sermonizing from churchmen, and I am not certain that I require your advice going forward. Nor do I recall asking for it in the first place, or why you thought you had any right to offer it. If you wish to collect your wife, the Saracen, and your servant, then I think it best that you remove yourself from my court and get on amusing others with your fables.”

Oh dear. Flynn can sense this about to go badly. “My man is hurt, Your Grace. He can’t stand a long ride, and we need – ”

“I don’t recall that’s my fucking problem.” Richard’s eyes have turned to blue-grey slits. He gets up sharply and turns away, pulling off the dressing gown and shrugging on a red velvet tunic, the sleeves decorated with lions in golden embroidery. He ties his braies and slides his feet into his boots, then turns around. Richard the man is gone, and it’s the Lionheart, the king and feared warrior, who’s staring dead at Flynn and looking like it’s entirely likely he’ll go for his throat. “Was any part of that statement unclear?”

Flynn opens his mouth, even though he knows the best course of action is to duck for cover and run like hell. “Your Grace – ”

Just then, he’s almost abjectly grateful to be interrupted by a knock at the door, even if only because this might give Richard’s hurricane a chance to blow onto someone else apart from him. Then Andrew de Chauvigny’s voice calls, “My lord?”

Wait, no. Never mind. Flynn is pretty sure he doesn’t want to be caught like this. But it’s too late, as Richard strides past him and jerks the door open. “God’s balls, Andrew, what the bleeding Jesus is so important that you have to – ”

Flynn turns around just in time to see that it is very bad. In fact, actually worse. Because yes, Andrew is standing there, and standing right behind him –

“Good morning, Your Grace,” Emma Whitmore says, in flawless Old French. “I was hoping you had a moment to talk.”


End file.
